Terrene, the shrub is a variegated dogwood that I grew from cuttings I got at Purdue University when they were trimming them. I prune it back each spring so it doesn't take over. I didn't prune this year as it looked OK. I've been known to rescue plants from office buildings in downtown Chicago and the parkways in Michigan City. I can't stand it when they rip out perfectly good plants to put in something new. I think of all the people who would love to have those plants. Tammy, sorry I don't know the name of the fern. We just call it a common fern, since most people who have ferns have this one that they got from someone else.

Marcolo and Blfenton, the box thing in the southeast corner is just that, a box constructed out of drywall to take up the corner. I hate blind corner cabinets, so I would rather "waste" the corner entirely rather than spending money on corner cabinetry I hate, especially since it lets me put more efficient drawer storage on each side of the corner. It also allows me to have tall cabinetry on the east wall and uppers and lowers on the south wall, without having an issue where they meet in the corner. I might put a door in the guest room wall to utilize the 27" x 27" space from the other side to store items we do not need to get to often, like luggage. I agree that having the wall ovens 4' away from the nearest landing spot on the island is not ideal, but it is a big improvement over the 7' walk between wall ovens and counters in our current kitchen. If we move the wall ovens to the east wall, there is still at least a 4' walk to the island. Amanda, the trash pullout and dishwasher are on opposite sides of the sink cabinet. I will also have storage for dishes, Rubbermaid containers, plastic wrap, etc. on the south wall. That way, after meals, the plates and pots all go to the counter next to the sink, leftovers can be packaged, dishes can be scraped into the trash and then go into the dishwasher. When I empty the dishwasher, the dish storage is on uppers on that wall. It sounds like cooktops on islands are not popular. I agree it is not ideal, but it was the only way to get the entire wall of tall cabinets on the east side. My DH loves the look of that wall, and that wall will be highly visible from our kitchen and dining room. I would prefer a real hood to a downdraft vent, but, then again, I have lived without a proper hood for 10 years. Mahlgold, I am having trouble balancing the look we want with function. We plan to do prep on the island and the counter to the left of the sink. Those 2 areas give us more counter space than we have had in any prior kitchen. We do not own a coffee maker or toaster oven. Our only countertop appliances are a KA mixer, small toaster and blender. The mixer and blender will go under the uppers to the left of the sink (mixer in far left corner on an angle). The toaster could also go on that counter, or maybe behind the lift door on the left side of the east wall along with bread storage. We only do breakfast and lunch at home 1 or 2 days per week. I am not sure how many or how deep of drawers to put in the tall cabinets. I drew each side with 5, but it could be 3 or 4. This kitchen has so many more lower cabinets than we have ever had before, that I am not sure what to put in all of them. On the right side tall cabinet, I thought I would want a couple of shallow drawers at the top to store extra trays for the Advantium, pot holders (those will be kept in 3 different locations near all the hot appliances) and wine tools like the opener, Vacu-vin, etc. Maybe a drawer for DH's vast tea bag and leaf collection and related tools. We could put all the empty baby bottles and plastic plates for the kids in a drawer in that tower or on the south wall. On the left side tall cabinet, I could use the drawers to store pyrex, roasting pans, pie tins and other baking dishes that might not fit in the drawers below the wall oven. My stove top pots and pans and utensils will go in drawers below or next to the cooktop on the island, as I have several feet of drawers on the south side of the island. The wall ovens were put on the north wall (where they are in the current kitchen) because they are less attractive to look at. Also, if we get the side opening Gagg ovens, they would be difficult to place in the east wall because they need at least 8" between the hinge side of the oven and an adjacent wall, so we could not put them at the very end of a cabinet run. It is also tricky because we are trying to find space for 3 wall ovens: standard 30" convection oven, speedoven/microwave, and steam oven. They are too tall to stack all together in one column and still have at useful heights. I will use the speedoven/microwave more than once a day, so I would be miserable having that oven below countertop height. I also hope to use the combi-steam oven regularly. I feel like we should have 1 full size oven, but that one will get the least use (I very rarely bake or cook large meals), so I could buy the Thermador wall oven with the standard door and put it under the counter somewhere and stack the other 2 together on a wall. The problem with swapping all the cooling appliances to the north wall and the pantry to the east wall as was suggested is that the pantry is only 16-18" deep and the appliances are 24" deep, which would prevent us from having a 24" deep coat closet on the hall side of that space. (We really need a coat closet because the house does not have one now.) I will think about whether we can steal coat space from another room, like the guest room. I am debating the idea of a prep sink on the island. DH looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested a second sink 5' away from the main sink. We do not use the sink a lot for prep. We rinse the veggies, but then put them on a cutting board and move it to where we want to work. We use a large bowl to collect veggie or meat waste when we peel, chop and trim. Sadly, we do not have any family in this state, so no one brings us food to prepare. It is just DH and I in the kitchen now, although we hope our two daughters will like to cook as they get older.

qknitter - You are LUCKY! Can you shows us 'before' pics? The staples in this chair were incredibly hard to pull out. There was NO WAY I could get them out with even a less expensive tack puller. If yours come out with a screwdriver and pliers, I'm jealous. Many of mine broke as I tapped the tack puller into them. The 'real' upholsterer showed me that I had been using my tack puller incorrectly. I was just taking those sharp points and trying to wedge them under the top of the staple, and then prying them out. He grabbed a small hammer that I had in here and he used that to it the wooden handle of the tack puller and drive it up under the tack, then push on the handle to bring the staple up. 99% of them still needed to be pulled out with pliers or 'side cutters' that I have similar to what I linked below. The cutters are very sharp, so they sometimes cut the tack I was trying to pry out and the fun continued, but I was determined after making that back cushion and seeing the improvement. If your tacks come out easily, you're very lucky. The upholsterer saw my chair and said 'It's the worst type to re-do' and that's because of all the staples. I did spend hours removing them, but sewed in between sessions to rest my hands. Here is a link that might be useful: Diagonal Cutting Plier

Thanks so much for the positive feedback. It was fun to make, although there were evenings that I thought "This will never turn out...I can't believe how much time I'm wasting. I should just put the Christmas tree up instead." :) For those who'd like to see how I did it, I added it here: http://patientgrace.blogspot.com/ I'm not a real blogger, just trying to find a place to keep some of the little projects that I do, so I can keep track of them. :) Here is a link that might be useful: Tutorial Subway Art