You mean, remove the drawers? Hmmm, I’ll have to see if my husband is willing to do that. They are large, heavy drawers. I’ve had several surgeries, and cannot do it on my own. Btw, to accommodate the drawers, I chose a sink with a rear center drain, so the pipes are as close to the wall, as possible. Oh, and two things...we do not have a garbage disposal, so I don’t know what your cabinet maker was talking about. And, it was my contractor, not the cabinet maker, who cut the back panel of the drawer, and configured a notched encasement to accommodate the pipes.

Overhangs are generally measured from the cabinet box, not the door or drawer front. E.g., for non-inset cabinets (framed or frameless), a standard cabinet is 24" deep but the standard overhang is 25.5" deep. This 1.5" covers the door or drawer front (usually 3/4" to 1" thick) plus the slight bit of opening b/w the cabinet box and the door/drawer front. Then add another 1/2" or so to extend past the door so spills are directed away from both the door/drawer front and the interior of the cabinet/drawer. The overhang has to extend past the doors/drawer fronts, not be as deep as them. It's also a good thing to cover most of your knobs & drawer pulls so they're not digging into you as you lean against the counter. With inset cabinets, the 3/4" or so for the doors/drawer fronts isn't needed, so a 3/4" to 1" overhang is usually plenty.

Fishes: Yes, we do have an eating area. It is narrow, only about 10' wide so we are placing our table with chairs there with a banquette against the wall. There is also a basment door and the door to the back staircase in that area so wall space is limited. These old houses are charming but can be complicated. I am toying with adding glass front display cabinets above the banquette so that I can get my display somewhere. I have a large collection of blue and white transferware that is displayed on shelves in our soon to be gone butler's pantry :(. With the lack of wall cabinets in the L I think having display is tough unless we put it in the sit down eating area of the kitchen. Can't wait until I can get my husband to show me how to post our layout so that people can see what I am trying to explain. I agree that your baking area more than makes up for the lack of wall cabinets. I am going to try to get out to dutchwood next week for a visit and a better idea of all the possible cost and upcharges.Have you gone there yet?

Here is my short and perhaps not totally accurate explanation of how these styles developed. I'm not a cabinetmaker, this is just from research I've done as I try to decide on my own remodel. (Honestly, I am not obsessive about this - it is just a boring day at work.) INSET In traditional furniture, the body of the furniture is made from solid wood, and drawers boxes are fitted into the body (case, carcasse) of the furniture. There is not a separate "frame" on the front of the cabinet, the drawer does not have a separate face piece, there are no drawer slides, doors use simple butt hinges. This is still how much fine furniture is made (check out Fine Woodworking and similar magazines). It requires precise fitting and handwork. Here is a link w/ a picture illustrating this. http://sandal-woodsblog.com/2010/01/26/fitting-the-drawers-to-the-stand-up-desk/ Thus traditional furniture drawers were necessarily ''inset''. Traditional furniture doors were also inset. OVERLAY People started making furniture using plywood and particleboard cases, which requires a frame at the front to conceal the edge of the plywood, as well as veneers and panels on the sides and back. Drawers got wood or metal slides, and a separate face piece, which conceals the slide and allows easier fitting. This gave the option of having the drawer face inset into the frame, or overlaid on top of the frame. Offset hinges allow the doors to overlay too. Here is a link with pictures of inset vs overlay. http://www.renovation-headquarters.com/cabinets-face-frame-frameless.htm FRAMELESS Around the middle of the century, people started eliminating the frame altogether. The drawer faces, and overlay doors, completely covered the edge of the plywood. Sometimes the plywood edge was also covered with a veneer strip. This frameless design is sometimes called "European", because it (supposedly) emerged in Europe as the continent rebuilt from WW2 with both money and materials in short supply. Here is a link with pictures of frameless construction. http://www.renovation-headquarters.com/cabinets-face-frame-frameless-2.htm This is why fully inset drawers and doors are a traditional, period, old-school look (think Craftsman, Shaker), while frameless is a modern look, with overlay somewhere in between (think 1940s, 50s). A skilled cabinetmaker should be able to do all types. Perhaps a frameless or overlay design should cost less as there is less precise fitting involved, but with modern tools and methods that might no longer be so true. That's my understanding of it, over-simplified I'm sure. I'd be interested to learn more or to be corrected.