I make my raised beds out of sandbags, and it seems to work really well for me. I'm so clueless with tools and wood that I'm not sure which end of the hammer you hit things with, so that wasn't an option; and I can't afford stone, so bags of sand turned out to be the way to go, for me. I was lucky enough to get all the bags (already filled!) for free the first year, from the soil testing lab at the engineering firm I work for. (That hasn't worked out as well in the last few years because I need so many bags at a time, but the bags only cost about 15-25 cents each, and a pick-up truck load of whatever sand is cheapest at the landscaping facility to fill them with is only 11 dollars). I use the 15" by 27" white polypropylene UV-treated sand bags with tie strings attached. They hold up pretty well for me, usually a year or more. Eventually, they start ripping (probably because I sit down on them to weed so often, and I'm not skinny :), and I dump out the sand that was in the bag, mix it with some compost, and toss it in the veggie beds. The beds honestly don't turn out as tacky-looking as they sound. (I wish I had a camera!) Stacked 2 bags high like I have them, in a half over-lapping brick pattern; and because the bags are plain white, it just kind of looks like big pieces of fieldstone, especially with the mulch all around the beds in the paths. If you wanted to try something similar, check your local phone book for geotechnical engineering firms, paving companies, concrete plants, commercial borrow pits and rock mines and quarries. Also your local branch office of the US Dept. of Transportation. All those places have full sand and rock sampling bags laying around all the time, and usually just heave them into dumpsters. They also usually also have stockpiles of various kinds of dirt: and all that black, organic, grass & wood debris-filled dirt that concrete and paving contractors PAY to haul off their job sites and have disposed of is free gardener's gold.

Thanks Idrive65. I have looked at the VAH models. $800 is a great deal for a 36' stainless VAH. I've avoided VAH, as I prefer a baffle filter system for easy cleaning. Perhaps you and others might convince me otherwise based on experience. To reply to the first reply. The 30 inch Capital range has (4) 19k burners and a 25k center wok burner. I plan to do quite a bit of wok cooking, as well as some light grill pan work. The 36 inch hood would be flanked by cabinets on each side and placed on an outside wall for easy exhaust. I have lots of flexibility at this point, because I have yet to order my cabinets. Wall mount or under cabinet are possibilities. Ease of cleaning is important, as is build quality. Low sound level would be a plus, but I prefer performance to silence. Basically, I'm looking for the best option for or under $1,000.00. I have seen some units (Independant low profile comes to mind)in this price range that are 22 inches deep. I'm afraid that's not quite deep enough (especially if I want to mount 32-33 inches above the cook surface). I've also seen some 36x24 models (600 cfm+) online from Windster and Cavaliere, but wonder about quality. Thanks for the advice everyone!

I spent a little time this afternoon trying out different layouts for your kitchen on my old 3D Home Architect, which looks like what you may be using. I should have been cleaning the house, but instead . . . :o). I was about to give up, when I came up with a plan that seems quite doable and solves some of the problems that I saw in the other plans. We once lived in a house with almost the same layout and size as your kitchen and DR. First, I would want to keep the dining room intact, and not have the kitchen encroach into it, because the DR size is perfect the way it is. However, you could still put a 60" wide doorwall centered on the end of the DR and have an 18" wide by 15" to 18" deep more decorative cabinet or hutch or upper & lower cabinet on each side of the doorwall for your dishes and other storage. That way your table could still be extended almost the full length of the room with 3 table leaves. If these 2 cabinets were a different color or height from the kitchen cabinets, it might look better to keep the wall between the 2 rooms (or maybe not), but you could put an approximately 5' wide opening between the DR & K if you kept the wall. If you used a more decorative version of the K cabinets it should look fine with no wall between them, and you could have the left one butt up to the dishwasher framing. To the left of the old wall (including the 4-1/2" where the wall was) put the DW (line up the right end with the end of the stair wall), then the sink, then a trash cabinet, then a narrow cabinet (spices? trays?), then a Super Susan in the corner, then the range, then a 12" wide cabinet. I'm not sure what the exact sizes of the cabinets between the sink and SSusan would be, since I'm not sure how a DW needs to be framed in when it's on the end. Upper cabinets (coming around from the range back to the DW): put a 12" wide one on each side of the range & possibly a 30" cabinet above the range hood depending on how fancy it will be and if you'll have space, then a 21" wide cabinet, turn the corner and put in a blind corner cabinet. Some people don't like these, but I've found mine to be very useful. It's better than losing all of that corner space and having a blank cabinet side right there. I don't put anything way back in it, but the first few inches are a good place to put things I seldom use, or extras of the spices, vinegars, boxed products, etc. that I use this cabinet for. Be sure to leave 3" to 6" on each side of the finished window over the sink without upper cabinets so that it will look nice. You'll probably have an 18" or 21" upper over the DW. I put the fridge on the right end of the stair wall, since I didn't like the way it looked in 3D from the LR and hall (entry?) in other locations. Also, there's plenty of space for it here, whereas it seemed to be crowding things elsewhere. (If you keep the DR/K wall, watch the size of it, because the fridge door has to swing most of the way back to access the meat & veggie/fruit drawers and to remove them for cleaning.) I'm not sure if you'd be framing in the fridge, so don't know how many inches that takes. I like having the MW next to the fridge (to the left under a 27" or 24" wide upper cabinet--this can be 12" or 15" deep) over a similar width base cabinet. If someone wants a snack, they can use the fridge and/or MW without getting in the food prep and cooking area. Having the upper cabinet less deep with the counter space underneath to put food on from the MW or the fridge, also makes this visually more open, instead of an in-your-face 24" deep tall cabinet as you come in from the hall. I'm assuming that the stair wall is not load bearing. If this is the case, you could build a very shallow floor to ceiling 24" to 30" wide (depends on where the studs are, and how much space you'd have between this and the cabinet next to the range) by approximately 6" deep mini-pantry to the left of the MW setup. You take off the front sheet of drywall, take out a 2x4, and using that cavity build the other 3" out into the room. I've seen the end result of this with a 9" deep pantry built into a wall, but you'd have to check to see how it's actually done. I know that you can buy face frames with doors, and other parts from Kraftmaid. That may not sound like much space, but you can get a lot of cans, boxed dinners, pasta, etc. in when the shelves are put in at different heights according to the height of the most common cans and boxed food you buy. If you use 1x strips of wood to support the back of the shelves, be sure to account for that when measuring the heights of the cans, boxes, etc., as well as the thickness of each shelf. You have to be careful when trying to cram a lot of shelves in! It's not as easy as putting them all 12" apart. I think this layout would open up the area, give you some nice counter space, good kitchen flow, and about as much storage as you can fit and still have things look right in both rooms. Hope some of it works for you. Anne

This thread is what I wish I read before I was looking in 2011 since one kitchen designer my friend referred refused to give me a price range for my kitchen when he stopped to see if he could reface my cabinet doors. He told me that I needed new kitchen cabinets and with my cabinet boxes, new doors and drawers would not be able to be installed (Home Depot could install just doors and new drawers for $18,000 for my small kitchen) He told me I had to visit his store to pick out a door and counters before he could give me a price range. He kept making me spend more and more time and meetings and then he went on vacation so this got dragged out for 6 weeks before he finally gave me a total price for a door he pushed on me that was not my taste that was a shocking price. Now I see that with installation and no new appliances, this is what it seems like my kitchen will cost despite being small in my opinion but then it was a shock at over $32,000 for a door style that I did not even like that much that he pushed on me. If he would have not wasted both his and my time but telling me a price range from the lowest to the highest for my kitchen, I would have known to just save more money and wait another year, meanwhile learning more and having a more realistic budget. I have all the appliances. I now have the recessing lighting and the floors are tiled in the running bond pattern with left over tiles to go under the cabinets, so I only need to remove the soffit with nothing underneath it, buy the cabinets and install them. I am keeping the same layout except I want a corner cabinet above instead of the blind cabinet. My old oak builder grade kitchen is actually not bad I am learning and better than many designs I was given as I have two Lazy Susan's, a Pantry Closet and a nice W-Shaped area with enough room for an eat-in-table in my approximately 10 X 14 Kitchen. When I am ready again, I have learned a lot and I also learned that it is the overall design and how all the elements come together that makes a kitchen beautiful and not the perfect white or the perfect counter. But what a waste of my time and his. He should have just told me that the lowest kitchen cost he could do for me was going to be over $30,000. I then would have waited to find a Kitchen Designer I liked that would give me what I wanted. The price included the recessed lighting and installing the tiles I bought already. I just had thought it was going to be around $20,000 at the most since I had all the appliances already.