PB, thanks for this...there is a lot to see in your beautiful city - so far I'm very taken with the sidewalk art festival and the sand festival, they have a wonderful energy and life to them. I'll continue looking.

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. Thats alot of money being spent on electricity!!! I bet that heat pump and installation were very expensive too!! How much was the Acadia heat pump installed for? I bet it was like 10 grand. You should have simply bought an airsource heat-pump from a big-name manufacturer or one of their cheaper label brands. Sometimes it doesn't make sense going 'too high efficient' because the technology costs too much, and it can be unreliable. Reliability is very important. When something is unreliable it eats into the energy savings which is the whole purpose for buying new (unless comfort or equipment failure). Also if something costs too much the energy savings never pay for itself. I think ACADIA is too small of a name company with too small a reputation to risk spending big money. If there unit was so good how come other big company's didn't use that same technology? A regular single stage air-source heat pump is the way too go in my opinion. The highest efficiency single stage is the way to go too be more specific. I think 2 stage heat pumps are overkill, and the higher price and extra complexity negates any energy savings. I like the idea of geo-thermal, but the problem in my area is there is a huge premium on the loop installation and this can be too much trouble too. There is also a premium if you say the word geo-thermal. People who work on it have to be 'specially trained' and they want tons of money. I don't think you can find the deals on the labor like I find with finding someone to help me install my air-source heat pump. My 3-ton Luxaire 14.5 seer heat pump condensor was $1467 from the wholesaler. Ofcourse we also had to buy the 3.5 ton a-coil, new lineset, honeywell focus-pro wireless t-stat to control it all, and misc. supplies. With labor and me serving as the helper it ended up costing only 3 grand. Its been working fine when 35F or above. At 32 is seems to run alot more. At 25 degree's it runs almost non-stop. My November 20 to December 22 electric bill was $112. I have my gas-furnace set to run when 30 or below instead of heat pump. I have been experiementing with running the heat pump at colder temps just to see how it does. Some people might be more comfortable with a switchover temperature of 35 from heat pump to gas. I think 40 switchover is too high but might be appropriate if your sensitive too cooler heat. Thats my 2 cents.

WoW!! THANK YOU GUYS. I was so nervous posting here - this issuch unusual kitchen that I truely wasn't sure how it would be received but we absolutely love it and I am so glad you do too. I really think the biggest help was working out where everything would go when we were done and then setting up the "kitchen" floorplan in the garage using appliance boxes and working through a couple of our make-a-lot meals. We refined it quite a bit that way and the actual kitchen has met or exceeded all our expectations in function and form. The one thing I sometimes wish we would have changed is moving one DW more into the prep area making cleanup easier but the reasoning for not doing it was sound form over function :) We didn't want to see the prep sink from the front door and that was the only other floor-plan that worked. I keep having to remind myself of that. dancefit my pots are All-Clad Stainless. We bought them because non of our old pots and pans except for the Le Creuset Dutch ovens were not compatible with the induction top. I LOVE these pans. They are awesome to cook with. They've definitely made me a better cook. mustbnuts - the floor-plan was inspired by out of the box thinking by my then 7 yr old LOL. He wanted me to watch him play outside while I was cooking. Initially there was some reserve here about putting the cooktop under the window but code in our village allows it as long as there are no combustible materials like fabric around and if the windows open, which ours do, the cooktop cannot be gas which ours isn't lascatx - great minds think alike!! The yellow pendant was supposed to be the back up in case any of the others ever broke. The one that should have been there is a blue one but the electrician put them up without consulting me - he didn't think it made a difference - and then to get him back would have cost $100 so we live with it for now. It's still beautiful. Auchmedden The checkerboard was from my inspiration kitchen and my friend Julie, who is a graphic designer sat down with me, a few copies of the elevation and brown, yellow and black crayons and we worked it all out in about an hour although I couldn't have done it alone. Crabapplemcn and others: the metal braces were custom made for my kitchen. Our granite fabricator has worked with Eric, the stainless steel fabricator from Indiana, before and together we designed the look I wanted. Eric consulted with the installation crew and together they figured out how it would be installed. The wall they attach to was built to take the weight of the bar PLUS those pullout seats from innovative-seating. We ran out of money so just have standing stools there now. Acountryfarm - we had TG dinner last year for 44 WITH NO PLUMBING in the sinks and an oven that I didn't realise at the time was 50 degree too low LOL This year I have plumbing and only 14 people coming. I'm really looking forward to it. maydl,redroze and moonkat - thank you :) Come on over any time just give me some warning so I can get the counters organized rmkitchen - you're a GENIUS!!! THAT WAS MY INSPIRATION KITCHEN!! Their kitchen was based on Circus Circus but I took most of the colorful elements out - wow you have a good memory. I saw the kitchen in a magazine and my inspiration came from there. I didn't hear about the TV show until much later Here's one of the pictures we used for inspiration! mindstorm - you had me there for a minute. [GRIN] but my manhandle doesn't like to fly and he hates being packaged in a little box. He likes it just where he is and he's staying put. These are our upper knobs Our inspiration kitchen had about 15 different handles but the space was about 4 times what we have. It would have looked like a circus. zeebee - I'd tell you where I got the pendants but then you might have to shoot ME. It wasn't easy working with THAT glass blower but any good local glass blower should be able to make you something similar. Flyleft and others. A lot of the storage solutions are unique. DH is a fledgling woodworker and did all the fittings for the inside of the drawers including the can drawers. Everything was made to measure which is why it all fits so well. A HUGE advantage of going fully custom. The rest is due in HUGE part to Ken at Ayr cabinetry. We tweaked this layout to make sure EVERY inch was used. He never said no to a single request. I think I drove him nuts but it was SOOOO worth it. raehelen :) Thanks again everyone. Now I must run and clean up the mess I made making dinner: Beef Brisket, mashed potatoes, broccoli and La Bete Noir! Sorry - no pictures.

Very nice casey! I enjoyed that