I know you have a lot of suggestions on this problem. Ive read the three most common reasons why cats STOP using the litter box are illness, stress, and unsprayed females will mark territory almost like males. If she is spayed and you are 100% sure she is not ill or uncomfortable, it must be stress. Experts write volumes and conduct tests on cat stressÂthey are very prone to it. A sudden nose, loud TV, accidentally stepping on a cat foot, a scolding from owners for an unrelated reason, a dog or other cat Oddly almost any reason can cause a cat to associate stress with the litter box. They suggest litter box location is very important. Some cats want several escape routes from an litter box area. Never scold, hit or throw water on a catÂit can backfire. Cover critical things like furniture, carpets and beds with plastic or aluminum (visqueen, paper grocery sacks, aluminum foil). This is temporary. Cats will avoid areas covered in these materials and save you the stress of buying a new mattress or carpet. Try one of those new pheromone plug-ins. Spend a lot of time holding, petting, playing with the cat just in case you are the one stressing her. Experts suggest your own stress can transmit to the cat and frighten her. Obviously keep her out of the bedroom for the time being. Do not leave clothes, towels, pillows on the floor. Google cats, litter box, problems, etc. and read some thought and remedies from others.

Whooooaaaahhhhh, to quote Keanu Reeves. I would LOVE that...but our ceilings are only 96". Insert frowny-face emoticon here. Waiting for ModernAire to open in CA so we can call. Here's my dilemma. PLEASE help me solve it so I can have this hood. We can use an 8" duct for this. MA said it will affect performance at the higher speeds, but with 1200 cfm already overengineered, I can live with that. That means we can fit it into a 10"-high soffit. The hood is 18" and the range is 36", which means the bottom of the hood will sit only 32" above the range. It's 24" deep, which I think is okay since the Lacanche juts out past 24" (28.25" is the depth with the spacer, I think). Is 32" too low? I asked the GC the other day about minimum clearances and he said that it's a minimum of 36". So today when we discussed this and I asked him to talk to the fire inspector before I order, he said that if it doesn't work, we'll figure it out later. Ummm, no. Oooh, good news...I'm on the phone with DH, who just talked to MA and they can make it 14" high instead of 18", which means the bottom will be at 36" so we should be okay. Now...I know that it's better to have the hood extend over the sides for max capture. The range is almost 40" wide. We were planning to order the 48" but I'm wondering how often I'm going to smack my head into the corner of the hood. Should I order the 40" instead?

I know what you are going through with the fridge. I had a similar problem with mine. Ours was only a year old so I didn't want to replace it with a counter depth - plus the CD are so expensive. We ended up building out a step-in pantry and hid it next to it. I like your plan 1 best. Unless you can hide the fridge better in plan 2 such as recessing it into the bathroom, I don't think you'll want to see it stick out so much from the LR. The fridge may be farther than you would like from the cooktop in plan 3. In plan 1, It looks like you would have 3' between cooktop and fridge. This is not bad and you would probably find yourself prepping closer to the sink anyway. I like the island idea. I think you could leave your sink where it is if plumbing would be an issue in the island. The island would give you a great work surface right across from your cooktop and fridge and not too far from your pantry. You can attach a table height seating area behind it that would provide seating on three sides. (Like butting up a table to the backside of the island to make a "T" shape). Houzz will have some examples (sorry, I'm not good with links.) BTW, I had that same vinyl floor in my last house. :)

I'm of the same mind that the more durable and hardest to repair surface wins. In this case, the tile wins since the vanity is moveable. For a floating vanity (vanity attached to wall) or for a built-in vanity for example, the vanity would win. Compromises can be made. Vanities can be altered. You have a vnaity like the one weedy posted, with feet. The feet can be relocated and inset so they don't conflict with the wall trim. Even with continuous legs like the vanity that edwina posted, I've cut off the legs and rebuilt the bottom of the cabinet. Sometimes you can add aftermarket feet, inset, either stained to match, ebonized, or painted, and the cabinet looks like it was designed that way. Or based on the cabinet design, it might look better with a bit more trim or with bottom rails added on the bottom...or even building a small inset platform and setting the footless vanity on that. I've made base platforms and even included a pull-out drawer for storage. There are several ways to attack it. If you do decide to let the vanity take priority and you cut the tile around the vanity, order enough tile so if the vanity is ever removed you have tile to infill as needed. Make sure that the infill tile will flow across the room. ie, you don't want the tile layout to run from the left wall to the vanity. Done. Then have the tile run from the right wall to the vanity. Done. You don;t want two separate independent layouts. If that happened and you ever had to infill, the two independent field patterns might not match up. It simply takes a little more thought. Some ways are better than others, but not all people think the same or see things the same, so my "better way" may not be the same as your better way. It's a different strokes for different folks thing.