My questions: Why does the sink have to be centered under the window? How flexible are you with windows and doors? If flexible (i.e., can change sizes or locations), your options open up considerably. Even just changing sizes (not locations) will give you many more options. Can the window be changed/moved? Can the patio doors be changed to 48" wide total (two 24" doors instead of two 30" doors)? BTW...I also advise you not to assume your teens will be out of the house "soon". There is a very good possibility they will be back following graduation. More and more, young adults are returning to the "nest" for a few years until they can get established in a career and are able to afford to live on their own. This means you could be looking at 3 or 4 cooks and more entertaining in the next few years. My advice is to come up with a kitchen that will work well with one or two (you and your spouse) as well as with 3 or 4. Your questions: Should I keep the short wall at the corner of the peninsula, or should I get rid of it, and make the counter top go all the way to the end? To the right of the counter top, about 1' away is a door to the laundry room. I think I would like it to be opened up all the way. if I make the change as #1 will it look better to have the wall cab at both sides of refrig 12 inch deep? Like the others, I think moving the refrigerator would to the long wall would be better overall. It will get the refrigerator out of the dead end and easily accessible to both people working in the kitchen as well as keep someone looking for a drink or snack from getting in the way of those working in the kitchen (e.g., at the sink or peninsula). It will also open up that area much more. The long wall is plenty open enough that the refrigerator will not "close it in"...not so the base of the "U" where it's currently located. any suggestion on the placement of glass door wall cabs? No opinion right now. Anyone using Wolf 36 inch all gas range - did you make the hood cabinets 3 inch longer on each side (to 42 inch) like suggested by the range instruction? I think it looks too bulky but afraid the heat will damage the cab. I highly recommend making the hood 6" wider (3" for each side). We like the look of decorative hood. However we do cook heavily. We are planning to get a ventilation hood with higher cfm but still wondering if the decorative will hood hold up to the cooking grease and smokes? (To my experience stainless steel is not the easiest to clean either, sigh) I like the idea of a decorative wood hood to match the rest of the cabinetry. We have a SS hood, and it's not that bad keeping it clean. We don't do a lot of greasy cooking, but we do enough...browning meat for tacos, sloppy joes, chili, etc. However, I like the decorative hood idea better! Is a wall oven a must in any kitchen? I'll get a Wolf range with oven. I don't think I'll need it and currently planning to stay in this house for more than 10 years. Definitely not! If you don't have a need for an extra oven, don't get one! However, if you plan to stay in this home when you retire ("age in place"), you might consider at least making a place for one in the future. Or, you could put one in now...maybe an oven/MW stack. Wall cab besides the hood - they are not as symmetric as I'd like. Am I being too picky? No opinion right now. Base cabinets - drawers or pull out cabinets? Pros and cons for each? Which should be next to the cooking range? Drawers! Drawers, IMHO, are far better than roll out tray shelves (ROTS) (a.k.a., pull out shelves). I've linked a thread discussing the pros/cons of each. You may need one for tall items, but you'd be surprised how much will fit in a single deep drawer. If by "pull out cabinets" you mean attached to the door and pull out when you open the door (like a trash pullout, for example), depending on the application, they can also be more useful than regular cabinets (upper & base). I have two sets of pots & pans...for gluten-free cooking (me) and for all other cooking. All of them are stored in drawers...and it's a great way to store them. The "regular" pots & pans are stored in 36" wide drawers under my cooktop...top shallow drawer has knives & prep tools (for "regular" cooking), the middle deep drawer has pots, the bottom deep drawer has pans and a wok. My GF pots are in two deep 24" drawers (fewer of them). My mother stores hers in regular base cabinets and they're a pain to access b/c you have to get on your hands & knees to get the items in the back. ROTS would be better, but then things can fall off. Drawers, to me, are far better. The only other type of storage I recommend for pots & pans is in a corner susan...that's what we had in our old kitchen & it worked very well. Everything was always in right in front of your...just rotate the susan and there's the item you need! How about something like this...assuming the window and doors can be changed...? Layout #1: This gives you a Prep Zone that will not be in conflict with the Cleanup Zone. It also gives you a lot of prep space b/w the prep sink on the peninsula and the range on the right wall. Your refrigerator is located so it's easily accessible from the kitchen, the DR, the LR, and the outside...without non-kitchen work activities getting the way of kitchen activities (prepping, cooking, cleaning up). There's even a secondary Prep Zone b/w the range and cleanup sink under the window. It has an optional oven stack for a MW alcove and wall oven. If you decide against it, see Layout #2 (below) for an idea. You have a 6' wide pantry with 12" deep shelves...a depth most of here at GW have found to be close to "perfect". The shelves are not so deep that things get lost, but they're deep enough to stack 2 or 3 cans (front-to-back), the majority of small appliances, most storage containers (Tupperware, Rubbermaid, Container Store, etc.) I put in a small table, but I don't think you'll need it with the peninsula seating. Speaking of seating at the peninsula, there are 4 seats and a 15" overhang. I did move the peninsula cabinets a bit toward the DR so they're flush with the wall b/w the LR & Kitchen. Yes, seating will be on the DR side with the higher ceiling, but I think it will be fine b/c there are no upper cabinets in that same space to draw attention to the ceiling difference. The cabinet in the corner to the right of the range is turned 90 degrees so it faces the DR. This is a better use of space a blind cabinet, and even better than a corner susan. In it, you could store items needed in the DR...table cloths, place mats, candles, etc. If you don't need additional storage in the DR, it could be used for seasonal kitchen items. Here is Layout #1 with Zones: Layout #2: Here is a link that might be useful: Thread: Drawers or doors with pull outs?

Taking the advice to widen the aisle, I'm pushing the island cabinets back several inches to widen the aisle. We had already mocked up with boxes where the cabinets would be and I made my various siblings and husband pretend to work at the rangetop and sink back to back as well as walking back and forth. The current spacing was comfortable for everyone even with exaggerated gyrations. However, since once the cabinets are in, they are in so I widened the aisle as suggested. We were living with 27" aisle so anything else is a huge improvement. @rebunky. I meant that I will DIY copper countertop for the perimeter unless I can find nice quartzite remnants that would be neutral. Even then I'm not sure I can afford it. I priced the cost of doing the perimeter countertop and it should be less than $1000 for the 8' and 6' run. I have to see what the leftover plywood are after all this demolition. @jlc712 I originally had the sink facing the window and just changing the existing island into a square but we lost a lot of storage with the gigantic fridge/freezer (73" expanse) and the 60" range hood. After mocking it up, we didn't have the flow that we needed. We still had my brothers clustering on both sides of the sink chatting with my dad and absolutely no counter on both sides as the Stages is 48". We had 6" of counter. When they come to visit, the first stop is staring inside the fridge for 20 minutes. @Oaktown, my mother would be sitting to the right or left of the settee and see everything. The settee is for my dad to sit down and rest every once in a while. I designed a pull out rolling table that slide under the baking counter. That table will be marble topped and at 30" for me to use for rolling dough. I'm 4'11" so 36" counter is tough on my back for rolling. It can also double as a dining table for my parents to eat informally together. My dad cooks 2-3 dishes every 4 hours for my mom so this way, he can just put the food out without carrying it into the dining room. She has little appetite so she eats a couple of tablespoons each time. The rest of us have to eat the leftovers.

Thank you, Khalid, for a wonderful show of roses blooming in hot temp. I like your dark-color roses: McCartney rose, Ebb tide, H.Z, Doris.T., and Oklahoma. Alec's Red is known as partial shade rose. Old Garden Roses are usually sold as own-roots here in America. In my experience, floribundas are better as own-root. Floribundas such as Ebb Tide, Bolero, French Lace are very good in acid-phosphatase (producing acid to break down minerals for blooming) .. thus they can root easily & be able to go deep into my hard-clay for winter-survival. I have to give high pH dolomitic lime to my FLORIBUNDA roses: Bolero, Old Port with dark green leaves. The exception is my Kordes Floribunda Deep Purple (ultra-wimpy as own-root) .. some Kordes roses are bred to secrete LESS acid, to prevent blackspots, and folks in alkaline clay California complained that some Kordes roses don't bloom well. My hunch is: if a rose blooms easily, it means roots can secrete acid to utilize minerals in soil, which means it will root easily, and does well as own-root. Per Khalid question: Do you think it will be safe to remove soil from the roots (in the evening), dunk the roots in a bucket of water for some time and plant it at a new place in temps ranging between 90-100*F during day but 80 to 90*F at the time when the rose is being shifted (evening time)? Answer: Yes, it's safe to remove soil from a GRAFTED-rose (Dr.Huey rootstock or Centifolia), dunk that in a bucket of water to get rid of termites, but NOT safe to plant at that high temp., unless you are in wet-season with frequent rain. I dug up roses at 90 F, bare-rooted in a bucket of water, and had to water it 3 times a day, otherwise the leaves droop. I bare-rooted Bluegirl (Dr.Huey-rootstock), then planted in another location. I had to water it daily for 2 months .. before it sprouted new leaves. Thank God it didn't lose leaves being dug up at 80 to 90 F, but it's a pain to water it daily for 2 months. I had seen Dr.Huey rootstock being wrapped in wet-sawdust, with a plastic outer-cover, sitting inside the store for 4 months, yet sprouted green leaves. If you don't have wet sawdust, anything damp & soft like cloth can sub. and the roots can be stored inside for weeks, then plant later when you have time or the temp. goes down.

>>>"What do you do to protect the countertop, backsplash and underside of the wall cabinet from the heat?""<< Read the owner's guide/manual and observe the directions for spacing. The exterior casing can get hot enough to burn bare skin but that heat falls off pretty radically with a modicum of spacing. You protect countertop and walls by not removing the feet from the bottom or the stand-offs from the back, (Would it have even occurred to you to do that?) The manual/user guide will advise keeping several of inches of space between the oven's top and the bottom of the cabinets above it. So don't shoehorn the oven into a tight shelf space and try to run it there. After all, they are called countertop ovens because they are meant to be used on countertops with a bit of space around them. Now, FWIW regarding glass cutting boards --- I've used a glass cutting board under my toasters and toaster ovens for years. Never singed or discolored formica counterptops nor the wooden countertop that my current countertop oven currently sits on. I use the glass because it is easier to clean than the wood not because I'm fearful of igniting or melting the countertops. In the interests of science --- and maybe for another appliance-geek merit badge :>) --- I cranked my countetop oven to 450°F for an hour with a temperature probe under the center of the glass board under my largish countertop oven. Temperature rise under the center of the glass was from room temperature to about 100°F. That was the extent of the heat transfer to a combustible (wood) surface. Hardly a combustion risk, eh?