Thanks everyone. We met with the builder this morning and I told him I wanted to move the fridge as Greendesigns mentioned. Thinking more about that, I'm really warming to the idea. I do like the idea of big drawers in the island. When we get to the point of meeting with the cabinet folks, we'll talk to them about prices for this. Hopefully we will have the contract signed on Monday and start moving forward for real! Kirkhall, that's a good point about french doors, we'll look into that. I was concerned about frozen pizzas fitting in a side-by-side... I think we probably will keep the side of the fridge open--we're excited to have magnets and kids drawings and such covering the front and side of the fridge! Kirkhall and LL, I haven't brought up the new plan on Build for a couple of reasons: 1) I'm pretty happy with it; 2) changes are much more difficult when they have to modify a stock plan, so playing around with layouts for a marginally-improved setup is not worth it. I'll post something this weekend, hopefully, when I get a chance to put everything together so it looks right and can give an explanation that I'm not exactly looking for feedback but am wanting to share with the great community that has helped me so much.

desert, I plan to get out to some showrooms this week to see what's there and I'm really hoping that will help move me forward a lot more. When we built this house, we hooked up a trailer and drove to Dalton GA and came back with all the flooring needed to do the entire house. It was easier to make choices when we were looking at the entire roll and not just small samples. We got terrific deals and then just paid the labor to have everything installed by a friend of DH. For the majority of other items we spent hours at Lowes. lanval, I plan to give the island a new top along with whatever we choose for the countertops and I know that will help spruce it up more. Originally we were told there was no room for an island at all, but our cabinet guy designed the funky shape to fit one in. I wish we had space to redesign it to allow more of a rectangle shape with an overhang to fit a couple of stools, but there is just not enough space around the u-design of my current layout. Anne, DH is assigned the reno to his brother. He doesn't have time to get involved in the work itself. That's probably a good thing since we end up disagreeing on details most of the time. I've learned we just see things from different perspectives because I'm considering details he thinks are not important. And since the kitchen is not really his domain, I don't want to get into a power struggle over the choices I make. I tried to discuss the timing with him yesterday and he sees no problem moving ahead with the April schedule. I pointed out the events coming up that will coincide with the time the kitchen is torn apart, and his basic outlook/comment is "it's no big deal"...he's just a 'get'r done' kinda guy. I tried to remind him this is not one of his empty houses that is unoccupied and the fact there is more involved than just slapping on a countertop and being done. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard, but I can see the entire kitchen torn apart and me being stressed enough over that while trying to juggle our spring busy season and my DD's precious time left living at home knowing the activities associated with that. Plus the responsibilities of finishing up our eoy business details is difficult enough alone, and now I'm sposed to be doing research/legwork to plan a kitchen reno. I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but when I say 'overwhelmed' I'm not exaggerating. If I could just put everything else in my life on hold right now, it might be no problem, but everything else is not going to just stop. I'm glad you see what I'm feeling about the timing of my DD last days at home. Just last year when she wanted to have her after-prom party here, I had some mini meltdowns feeling overwhelmed with my regular daily workload and then adding more to it. This year isn't looking much better... Anyway, to clarify some of the questions you asked: I broke the measurements into 2 sections since the bar seems to separate it into 2 areas. The nook area is 13'x9'8". The kitchen area is 9'5"x13'2" but that is only the actual floor space. The cabinets are 25" deep so you could add that to the width of 9.5 for a size of the actual room. The garage is on the other end of the house. There is door to the backyard patio in the nook area. The original plan called for columns and a more open floorplan. DH chose to change it to large c.o. I posted pics from different angles to try to show this. I measured everything you asked to help clarify; fridge is 35"Dx35"W - cab depth is 25" - MW cab is 29"D - raised bar is 12"D. I checked the face frame of cabs and it appears the only ones sharing is the section to the right of the sink where the raised bar is. The rest are chopped up due to the DW, stove, and corner that leads to the MW cab. I'm trying to visualize the changes you suggested...I guess I need to sketch it out to understand it completely. Since his brother is doing the reno, it actually gives me more comfort b/c I know is fully capable of any little details I bring up. At this point...right now...I'm in panic mode after talking with DH last night and he totally doesn't get my lack of enthusiasm about the schedule. He makes it sound so easy. The ct can be done in one day, the floor can be done in one day... what's the problem??? Arrggh!! happy, Glad to hear of your wp sucess, painted and stripped. I hung every bit of the paper in this house and have 3 baths of wp also facing stripping.

well, after a few wks of nothingness (other than runs to the vet and going broke!) the guys came out and filled in the trenches, took away a lot of the trash from it all and showed me which switches to turn on to put the juice to the lights and sockets. I need to buy a bunch of bulbs tomorrow - some are burned out and some are missing. And I can vacuum over there now and suck up a bunch of that dirt! I was tired yesterday but I did go to Lowe's and brought home a few sheet vinyl samples to try out (along with the one I had). and I bought 2 lever handles for the 2 rooms with deadbolts on them. I spent over an hour there looking at stuff - flooring, knobs, cab handles, doors, bathroom cabs and lighting. I think I'll have to get larger light fixtures for the outside doors. those small ones are just toooo small - unless someone knows a nifty way to change out the bulbs. I can't deal with the kind of globes you have to unscrew and rescrew back in. I also don't anticipate the thrill of squeezing my chubby fingers into the tiny opening they usually give to access the bulb on others. Didn't see any lights that I liked for the DR area or bathrooms. I might 'see' differently next time there when I'm not so tired. I should look at lights FIRST on the next trip there. certainly didn't see any cab handles I liked. they did have some unfinished bathroom cabs that were only 30" high (if my eye sight is correct). nothing special, just plain 'ol wood - oak. had some side sections with drawers - to purchase separately. just in case I don't find any at the restore or CL. I didn't like any of their indoor/outdoor carpet on the rolls in back. they did have a few precut rolls (most 5x7, a few were bigger) that looked good for about 26.00 - 45.00 $'s. that's an option in the coming weeks... I picked up 2 area rugs at the new 'used' store in our town last week. both 5 x 7. one solid color and one print with color of the solid color rug in it. might work in the back rooms or together in the DR/LR. Time will tell. I did see a sliding door I liked. It was 3,000.00. So much for what I like! ha! I'm sure dbf has a much cheaper 'model' around somewhere anyway. and free to me is the 'cheap' I like! Not much will get done monday or tuesday (doc appt for me and I have to do another glucose curve on boy Tuesday) but maybe on Wednesday I can make more progress over there. I tried to post this yesterday but every time I scrolled down to about the halfway mark the screen would disappear and it would say 'loading' again! I couldn't even scroll down more than that to read a post.

Nicole, good for you for finding a way to make the chairs work for now, they are great chairs in such good shape. Are you sure, though, that you only need 4 yards of fabric each? I ask because I used 7 yards on my little chair. However, a fair piece of that was used to make the welting (although I made way more than I needed!). Here is the link to a yardage chart on a professional upholsterers site I found http://www.carrscorner.com/yardagechart.php I know what you mean about fabric price! I used CL fabric on my chair, but when I was looking for the dining chair fabric I was floored at the prices. That is why I'm using a table cloth to cover the one I'm presently working on! ;) Trancegemini, I am now kicking myself for not taking photos of the reconstruction of the chairs! Yesterday I started to rebuild the wooden chair shown above, and I started from scratch with it! I added all new webbing, replaced the springs and hand tied them, new burlap and now all new padding. I have tear-down photos of both chairs, but got so involved with putting things back together that I didn't think to record that process! Next time for sure. Double welting is the decorative trim used to cover raw ends, and I see from the link I just found that I can still use this on my pink chair looking at the way it is made, but I would have to purchase a special foot for my machine. The link to explain it is below. Scroll down to see all of the article and photos. Here is a link that might be useful: How to make/use double welt cord