Thank you all for your responses! I've been away from my computer for a few days and am delighted to see and read what you've all shared. " I couldn't give up extra storage and dead space, to me, is crazy! " I agree with you Jennybc. I hope your new kitchen works great for you. : ) Ilovecookie, you sound like an experienced island owner. : ) It'll be interesting to hear which island style is your all time favorite. Marykh, having a 48" deep island with a cooktop sounds like a very good idea. Island cooktops without a lot of extra depth always look so scary to me. It's neat that you liked your current configuration enough to do it again. Sjhockeyfan (bonus points for you!) I love the way you did partial storage and partial seating. Great idea! That's a good compromise, and you don't have to crawl like a troll under a bridge to get your things out from the back side. Nice. Scootermom, that's funny. I can just picture my dh sticking one of our little kids on top of a towel and scooching them around by their ankles to clean the middle of that mammoth island. I don't think I'd want one that big, for sure. Ah, Cloudswift, you have my favorite island cooktop configuration. I don't think we'll be doing a cooktop, but if we did, I think it would look much like yours. I also like your idea of doing storage just on the ends. Good thinking! Thanks for the pictures. You get bonus points too. ; ) Oldbat2be, just look at that sunshine streaming across your island. Pure loveliness. Sigh. I get the stuff spreading across the island. I think that's one of the downsides of a big one. It's all too easy to set stuff and then push it around rather than cleaning it off. A small island is much easier, imo, to keep cleared for working. But once the big one is cleared, like chiefneil said, it's a great spot to work! Debrak, I can picture you and your cat doing your island dance, LOL. We have a cat with a similar bent on life that likes to hop in our vehicle when we go to leave. I can't tell you how many times we've had to chase him from one end to the other of our 12 passenger van, over and under seats and around passengers and belongings before we can get him out(the little weasel) But we love him. Nhbaskets, I really liked your old kitchen, and your new one is going to be beautiful, too. That's great that your DH made you check to reach the whole island before install. You get bonus points for your picture as well. : ) Sherri58, I like the sounds of your island configuration too, with a mix of seating and storage. Do you have a different spot for hanger-outers since you won't have island seating in the new kitchen? I like to have someplace for those sweet visitors to go that's out. of. my. workzone. Otherwise, I like you, would make it all storage! Calquail, thanks for asking about the island dimensions, and thanks, sjhockeyfan for your detailed description. That's so helpful! Good point about going a little deeper on the shallow bases. Thanks all!

I can identify with the too much to do in too little time stress situations and I also can identify with the there is too much to do and not enough time to do it and I don't know where to start so I don't do anything syndrome. In my case, it now takes me and hour and a half to drive home from work due to the traffic problems every day that seem to get worse. I usually don't leave work until after 5:00 PM, have to get to the other side of the river which means I have to go through or near downtown Nashville and there is always some function going on there where traffic does not move. By the time I get home it is 7:00 PM, I have to change clothes, feed the horses, cats, dogs, grab something for me. By then it's 8:30 or 9:00 PM. And by then I'm too tired to do much else because I get up at 4:00 AM and start the routine in reverse all over again. Saturdays it's almost the same. Got to get all of my trash together and haul it to the collection site, go to the feed mill, co-op, grocery shopping, maybe the vet and a dozen other things. I get home around 4:00 PM and try to mow the yard. At almost dark, I'm out feeding all the animals again. Sundays I am so tired that I don't want to do anything but I have to get my clothes ready for the next week at work, do what housework that I can get by with doing and try to have some time to just do nothing. People are always telling me to "get rid of my animals", I don't want to get rid of my animals and the only way I could get rid of them is to condem them to certain death. Nobody wants the cats or dogs and my horses are untrained and old. I don't think there is any way they would even load in a truck or trailer and survive the experience. I just want time to be able to enjoy my land and my animals, and, I am hoping that is in the near future. I hope to be able to retire at the end of June.

Thanks folks, I have a sack of about 10 different 1/4 yd cuts that I've bought/ordered/lived with. I had them all up for varying lengths of time from hours to overnight to days. Hubby is sooooooo over it. Every time I tried a bright color it just looked off to me. Once I put a big, bold pattern in it just clicked better. I actually really like the same pattern in blue over the sink, but when it's in the eating area it's not quite right. So essentially I think I'm ready to go neurotic but not quite certifiable crazy yet. I'm going to accessorize with a lot of blue but if I decide to go back to red or yellow or orange in the future, a can of spray paint solves the issue. This thread has also made me love suzani now. :) The eyebrow comment is valid and definitely makes me think. I've got one more fabric store to visit today, but at that point I think I have to make a call of some kind. I could put this off for months if I let myself.

I felt like a genius this weekend. On Saturday I was in Bismarck. My sisters television projector lamp went out about a month ago. My son was going to put it in for her and he kept forgetting about it. Her neighbor told her it was going to cost her about 500 dollars to have it put in. It is a 49 inch tv. I told her to call the repair place and ask them how much it would cost. they told her about 175 dollars but that they were really easy to put in if you had a screwdriver. I told her to go on Utube and type the installing a projection lamp and see what it says. They had 3 little girls installing one on there. We thought if they can do it we can too. I took both doors off and I was at first scared to pull out the lamp because I thought I was supposed to use a screwdriver for something and I guess there are some that you need one to do it but not hers. I pulled it out and we took it to the repair place but they had sold the last one 2 days ago. they had some more on order though. So by tomorrow she should have her tv working. Someone told me that you can find how tos to do anything on Utube so I thought I would give it a try.