Hi Bethesdamanman, My apologies then, Dave. I thought that I had recalled you posting on the other board that mortgage rates would stay low for years and years, and that we would never return to the high rates of years past. My error. Eeeesschhh .... well.... actually... kinda sorta, YES.... your apologies in this case are NOT warranted. Herein lies a case of "text failing where a verbal conversation *may* have worked better." I've never said rates would stay low "well... forever".... I HAVE said rates (30 FRM rates to be precise) will unlikely climb over 7% in our lifetimes. I *STILL* stand by that.... albeit, I am now offering that we are entering a territory of government-induced inflation at levels I (perhaps naively) thought the United States political system was above. If we continue down the path of dollar-dilution that we've begun accelerating along, there are only two end-game results; A) we reverse course back out of it before we self-destruct in revolution, B) we self-destruct (and the devil we do not know is always a potential problem.) *IF* we successfully reverse and dig ourselves out of the hole of trouble our most recent past and our current government administrations are hell-bent on digging us into... there are only two ways of "sopping back & vacuuming up" the diluted unbacked funny-money that has been injected out into the system; A) The Treasury collects more taxes than it provides to the government to spend, and/or, B) The Fed increases interest rates higher than its blended payout on the treasury bonds (and then some... the greater the positive income spread to the Fed, the more painful to the "fixed-income retired crowd" which is our baby-boomer bubble... who will rally with AARP-sponsored pitchforks.) Both A & B will be met with *MASSIVE* resistance from the only crowd that the poloticos *KNOW* will consistently show up to vote, and have almost unlimited spare time to write, call, email, and generally pester the daylights out of the politicians; The Seniors. SO.... I've learned to never rely on "common sense" when it comes to anticipating "government logic" (an oxymoron if there ever was one.) Obama has enlisted the original architect of option B... Paul Volcker... as a "senior economic advisor." ("Senior" may (MAY) work somewhat to our advantage here... as Gramps Volcker *MIGHT* have some age-gained sensitivity to his classmate comrade's plight.) Volcker is the one who decided to fight inflation in the 1970's by driving short-term interest rates up to the 20%'s... The late '70's and early '80's result was that Volcker recaptured (in a VERY painful way) the excess liquidity (flooding of funny money) our country created by going off the gold standard and adopting a "weak dollar" policy through the 1960's. WHAT WILL WA DC DO??????????????? I dunno.... (I know what I pray/chant/meditate they will do...) *IF* the government (both the loonie left & jackthug right) get OUT of the way of the naturally balancing markets... then my expectations and predictions stand, with virtually my 100% confidence. My fears are that the United States idea of a market-based capitalist self-righting system has been a grand and wonderful social experiment... but that the human frailties (compounded in mob psychology) are sabotaging the underlying DNA strands that made it possible to stand. My COMFORTING REALIZATION... is that despite my egoistic pride for being part of a "successful system".... even if that system turns out to be a decaying failure, INDIDIVIDUALLY I and my family, and those I guide, can still retain their own personal success and quality of life. Cheers, Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

plllog, we have a appliance repair company I can call. We haven't had to use them often (thank goodness) but when we have, they've given us good service and (we felt) honest answers. I'll also ask the HVAC tech when he comes to give us a quote on installation of hood and downdraft (we have to tweak downdraft venting by a few inches). I realized last night that installation for a hood just might be spendy enough to make our minds up for us. I figured the squared hoods were too modern looking - dang it - but I had to ask. jeanteach, when I walked into the kitchen this morning and saw my cardboard hood hanging there, I thought, "uh, no, not that." So I'm back to leaning towards a downdraft. Both options have their pros and cons and we just need to figure out which cons are easier to live with. I keep staring at my kitchen, whipping out the tape measure and revisiting how to move the cooktop to the perimeter because that would solve this issue for me. But short of compromising on way too many things - and stickier issues for me than the cooktop ventilation - it can't be done. Not without 2 more feet of wall space in one direction or another. Ah, well, hubby really likes the cooktop in the island. And I honestly don't mind it but I'd be happier with about 8-12" of counter on either side. Oh, there's that danged 2 extra feet again! Oh, don't mind me. I'm exhausted, it's been a long week and I'm obsessing for no good reason. This isn't an end of the world decision. I need to step back, take a breath, and just pick something! Either option will work just fine.

Mrs. Pete, my kitchen is 18 feet long and just shy of 14 feet wide. I am one of the few U-shaped kitchen remodels of late. This kitchen suits our needs pretty darn well (I will not say perfectly) and we are a family of 5. I will post my link and some of the thought process we went through to help you visualize. Remodeling our kitchen really allowed me to design my storage much better and that has cleared off my counters, making my kitchen far more usable. So the good news for you is that if you had a rental home 20 years ago with a U and yo liked it, things have only gotten better. Your storage will be more efficient and you should be able to eliminate cabinets and yet store as much or more. Note that I did keep one cabinet in glass over part of my peninsula, but then we need a LOT of food storage with two teens and a near-teenager. As an example we have a cabinet strictly devoted to cereal storage. So if you took my kitchen and added two feet in length and one in width? The width answer is very simple: I would add a foot of walkway at the end of the peninsula and down the length. I hit all the minimums, but roomier would be nicer. Two more feet on the room's length would give you room to have bar stools and a table. But, do you really need bar stools at this point in life? With a large group you probably wouldn't be putting people at both the table and the counter to eat. Better to get a table with leaves in it for a larger crowd. Then that table can be folded back to a manageable size when it's just the two of you. Again, give yourself the elbow room. I might make the base of my U longer. As is commonly taught on GW, prep zone and clean-up zone run into each other when you only have one sink in your kitchen. A little more room might alleviate the crunch. I do like having a double-bowl sink, where the right sink is for dirty dishes and the left for prep work. But really, if you look at my kitchen, most people would say the stove should have moved to the back wall, removing the need for the island mount fan and opening up the space. And a large peninsula without a stove would be better for serving food buffet style. I tend to agree that if I were designing from scratch I would place the stove there. Another thing some posters here advocate is for moving your sink to the peninsula (or island). The reason to move the sink to the peninsula is that you will face your guests as you prep the food. On the other hand, most of the time, I don't have guests waching me cook, so the window is nice to look out. Hope this helps give some of the pros and cons to think about when planning your U shaped kitchen! Colorfast Here is a link that might be useful: Colorfast's nearly done U Shaped Kitchen

funky - I am very practical. The stuff we use every day stays out - I see no sense in adding extra steps to hide it away. For us, that is blender, coffeemaker, hot water pot, and microwave (or possibly the Breville now??!). I like clear counters but don't need to have them "magazine" cleared and stuff hidden all the time, just doesn't work for our lifestyle. Partly why I'm really struggling with the layout - I want it to be practical, but my current kitchen is a small galley. Everyone in our family manages the big dinners with small, sort of inefficient kitchens in old houses but makes it work. No one has an island, prep sink, etc. So my frame of reference is sorting through GW and trying to think through how my own workflow goes. Easier said than done! : ) I tried to meet with a kitchen designer but the only one who does that in our area basically said, "Our cabinets are going to cost more than the custom Amish so you really shouldn't waste your (our) time" and pushed me out the door before the appointment even got started. I even tried awhile back to meet with the KD from Lowe's but after a lengthy appointment and multiple follow-up calls they never actually provided any sort of plan. Neither of my custom builders or architect had a KD to recommend in our area, seems no one is really that into worrying about kitchen design except GW?! : ) mamagoose - Thanks again for taking the time to draw that out, it is giving me a lot to think about. Will ovens on the fridge wall allow for enough "landing zone" area? Would the best landing be on the island probably? Seems like that will be fine for the oven, but for the fridge that doesn't give much space with the prep sink there. The island does have a 15" overhang for all seating areas, but I may not have it noted. There is more than 24" width for each seat as well.