i looked at a few reviews of amquel plus (kordon) - don't know if that's what you were using? it claims it does not change PH, but people say it drops it considerably (but not ALL people, so it depends on your local water formulation). here's quote: .. it significantly reduces your pH. If you continually add it to your tank without any water changes in hopes of maintaining proper water parameters, you will end up with a pH around 6.0-6.2. I buffered my water with baking soda, bringing the pH back up to 7.6, but that only lasted a couple hours until it dropped back down. ... obviously 7.6 is good for fish, but not for AV's. it seems that conditioner is formulated to keep PH neutral (which is NOT good for av's) on the other hand 6-6.2 SHOULD be OK for AV's...(if not for fish;)) ...so it gets kinda complicated, since your water plays a big role too. also conditioner binds heavy metals (copper,zinc)! from optimara site: Optimum soil pH ranges from 5.8 and 6.2. A good potting soil, which has been blended especially for African Violets, will have the correct pH. However, there are other factors which can affect pH, such as concentrations of fertilizer salts and soft water. If the pH of the potting soil varies too much from 5.8 to 6.2, your African Violet will not be able to absorb the proper amount of nutrients it needs. For instance, high pH can result in a deficiency of iron, whereas low pH can result in a deficiency in phosphorus. ..[ either one will cause slow growth rate] ..later on... slow growth might be happening due to zinc defficiency (!). to make the long story short - you're neutralizing/removing chloramines, but also might be playing with PH and fertilizer absorbtion rates. ..later on.. do not use soft water. Soft water increases the saline content in your potting soil... i also read that.. all municipal water systems in the western world add soda ash or sodium hydroxide or a similar alkali substance, to get the pH up to 8 or even 9! as far as using spring water - you need to know where it comes from and it's alkalinity and PH still! it might be soft too naturally (like in FL and many other parts of the country). ... my head is ringing already from all this.... Here is a link that might be useful: optimara on PH

I haven't taken these "vitamins" but I will offer a few comments. The website is obviously well-funded and slickly designed. Unfortunately, I could not find any information on the contents of this product. I would think, given the build up, that they would be eager to tell you exactly what is in it. Most professional-level supplement companies do provide this information on their multivitamins. Some of the components they do mention, like lycopene, do not have any agreed upon daily values. Many times, these components are provided at "fairy dusting" levels useful only for marketing purposes, often far below the therapeutic levels quoted in the medical literature. Usually the more expensive the raw materials, the smaller the final dosage in the product, especially if you have to pack in 50 or 60 components. Without the content information, it is impossible to assess the quality of the product. The incessant hype about nanotechnology is just that. I have neither seen nor heard of anything in the medical literature that supports their claim that nanotechnology provides a superior carrier for nutrients. In fact, my understanding is that nanotechnology is in its infancy. I am continually amazed that people who would never purchase a 1.0 incarnation of a piece of software (like the current Microsoft Vista) will naively purchase the latest "technology" in medicine. The same wisdom applies in both cases - new or untested medical technology is buggy! If you need examples, look at PremPro or Vioxx. Given the hard sell, the guilt-tripping rap of their reps, and the lack of information that would allow an informed consent, I would say that this product is both overpriced and overhyped at the very list. I personally would not support a company that operates in this fashion. If you are looking for supplements specifically for eye health, consult a reputable naturopathic doctor, botanical medicine specialist, or Chinese medical practitioner trained in herbal medicine.

Yeah ... lots of critical things to consider such as initial and changing pH effects*, buffering, multivalent cations, anionic and cationic micronutrients, and zeolite like ion exchange surfaces on soil particles, which make it a play day for chemistry discussions. Then the attack and breakdown of plant and animal litter to slow release nutrients brings up neat microbiology and biochemistry aspects. Material science then decides to manipulate the situation with osmotic release and diffusion of encapsulated nutrients. And hydroponic principles try to partially play nature taking over the hydrology and lighting it up. Physics kicks ideas in there on this last aspect. For instance did you know that fluorescent light indeed glow when struck by energy (as you know), but much of the light intensity flashes through a series of distinct colors at 60 times a second? * Plants cheat neatly by manipulating ion exchange release of cationic nutrients. They knock off ammonium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and other positively charged ions by producing acid(s) to knock it off. H+ alone can cause the exchange but if the acid is on a small organic base (anion) like oxalate this organic can diffuse around and pull at the cations on soil that the plant wants and help knock it off, helping in the "weathering" breakdown of soil too. Chelators made by plants and microbes make it really interesting too. They diffuse around and hold certain critical nutrients so tightly that the plant has the choice of finding more, having a deficiency (specific nutrient starving), making a stronger chelator to take it back, and/or breaking the chelator down to free the nutrient. Now the fun parts ... the plant one might be considering is not be alone. A group of similar or different roots might be working together AND competing in that patch of soil, with different players at different depths Trees cheat and certain non woody plants cheat and go low. Moles, gophers and field mice run through this soil zone toox playing their games. No soil contact then no nutrient uptake, no root then no nutrient collection there for the plant, loss of stored nutrients and need to spend energy replacing the root. And there are smaller life forms co-inhabating the soil with the roots that are also directly or indirectly effected by soil pH. Let's put them into three classes as those that (1) don't generally effect a plant much, (2) can hurt the plant, or (3) can help the plant. Let's see ... hurting a plant is bad, unless it hurts a seriously competitive plant more. Helping a plant is good, unless it's again that serious competitor. Plants are not stand alone organisms in naturem. They live in community with microorganisms. So what if the soil pH helps support the growth of a microbe that can grow all over your plants roots? Sounds bad I know, but there are those three classes mentioned above. If your microbe is a pathogen that is bad. If it doesn't attack the plant but runs out and breaks down nearby leaf litter, great free food. It it doesn't hurt your plant but by being on root surfaces can compete with and stop pathogenic microbes from getting a foothold, great a free natural inoculation for immunity. There was a company called Eden Bioscience a couple decades ago here in the PNW that made an interesting observation. In large scale evergreen seedling production for forestry sometimes there were large scale fungal blights. Sadly alot of the seedlings all died at once in mass. However, sometimes there were a few seedlings near each other that did not succumb! In fact they looked totally healthy! When isolating bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi from the surfaces of these plants they found that certain kinds could be grown in the lab that protected seedlings from attack, when sprayed onto them. These microbes grew best in their optimal pH range. They indeed colonized the plants, in this case leaf surfaces. And their presence did protect the leaves from pathogen attack. Obviously similar things must be happening in nature in the leaf canopy and also soil root zone of plants. So when a plant likes acidic pH 5 - 6 soil, is this just because nutrients are more available it? When I went to school, in what now seems like the dark ages, most plant physiology books focused almost solely on this. Or is it because beneficial microbes helping feed or protect the plant need that pH? My firm assumption is that both chemical and microbial pH dependent effects interact to make an optimum environment for that plant. And that some plants in the natural environment survive best, rather than grow best, at their optimal pH range. Why do many fungi sour (strongly acidify) what they are busy rotting? Niether competive microbes nor does the dieing plant tissue like it. The fungus gets more. This is exactly why you want to check the pH in the soil that you might be soon preparing for your new vegetable or herb garden this spring. Too basic, your plants starve. Too acidic, the pathogenic fungi don't starve. Then like the heirloom story of The Three Bears ... there's one pH that's just right.

All good points mentioned above. I'd keep the range on the same wall as the sink, for ease of moving prepped items, and also for easier venting on the exterior wall. Do you have a supplier for shallower than standard uppers? I'd put shallow uppers on the fridge wall, for convenient snacks near the fridge and MW. We have vintage 10" uppers on one wall, and they hold a lot of stuff--small baking items in one section, vitamins and other pharmaceuticals in another. They aren't deep enough for plates, but they accommodate gallon jars, in which I keep grains and flour, to keep bugs out. In the following version of your layout I added shelves on the sink wall, along with the expanded window, and left off the angled cabinet. I added a trash pull-out to the right of the sink, and took a few inches off the drawers under the prep space to make the base on the right of the range wider:Is the piece behind the table an existing item you want to keep?