Gary, I have not seen it but will look at it. I have a feeling it may be like the "fake" but extremely realistic looking orchid tree they have at Fairchild. The expanding foam to hold on the corkbark works GREAT. It will also hold firmly pieces of driftwood and other wood. I used it to make my 55 gal "aquarium terrarium" and the foam was top notch for this purpose. You have to kind of cover any amount that "squishes out" with moss and plants but its easy to do. The Black Jungle site suggested "painting" the visible foam with black caulk but I tried that and it worked POORLY. Its a lot easier to glue some moss on there using the caulk or just tying or wiring it on under the plants. I actually bought something once with this kind of project in mind, I am planning to use it to let my Vanilla Vine run up top in the GH: I bought one of those large bore fenestrated pieces of tubing they use in septic drainage fields. Since it has holes in it, there will be good drainage for any water that gets inside. It can be sectioned and made into any form, and then you cover the same way, with the foam and pieces of mounting substrate.

What fun to see all your vegetable gardens. Vegetables can be really quite beautiful. I really like the idea of growing our own and the whole organic thing. My story begins with a vegetable garden that my son grew and tended until he graduated from high school. I really was much more interested in flowers, but I took it over. I hated it. The weeds were hard to control and the edge hard to keep neat. After a few years I finally decided to embrace it. I analyzed why I didn't like veggie gardening and decided that if it was pretty and less labor intensive that it might appeal to me more. So I created a Potager. Just the name sounded interesting to me. I lined the whole garden with old bricks and made it symmetrical with a large urn for a centerpiece. I later added the arbor. I began to look for unusual vegetables and now like to try new things each year. I have also added flowers and herbs. In fact one of the quadrants is a small cutting garden. Since its just hubby and I, we don't really need such a large one. Here are a few pictures of my Potager. This first one is early spring and showes the bones of the garden. Basically a rectangle with a semi-circle on each end. The back end holds the asparagus patch.

When I read your written description, it seemed like the 30" would get you extra storage cabs which was a concern of yours, but after seeing the visual, you will have plenty of other cabs and counter space. The 36" wide is so nice to use (ours is actually 37.5" wide). There is more room between the burners and ours actually has a griddle as well. Our old stove used to feel crowded up top. Our range has an oven and another next to it that is much smaller that is for cookie sheets. The main oven in our range is a little small, so we got a separate wall oven. This way, with a small item, we use the small oven. Luckily that was in our plan before we discovered our problems hooking up to propane (not approved yet or in the near future) so we are very grateful to have the second oven to use. Having a second separate unit is great because if you ever have one fail, you are not stuck. Of course, you can do a 36" cooktop with separate 30" oven below. That is one way to get duel fuel, if applicable, and not have too large an oven for when you cook smaller things. I'd skip the potfller, because that only helps at the fill stage and the more important stage is when it has boiling water and another pound added to it (the pasta itself) and it needs draining. I'd make sure your prep faucet is tall enough for your pasta pot or there was a pull down/pull out feature to the faucet. I'd also opt for a good size prep sink because you have counterspace to spare. You want it large enough to hold your largest colander. I sometimes see very small ones and wonder how useful they are. It would be great to put the filtered drinking water faucet by the prep sink since that is closest to the seating (if you don't have drinking water from your fridge). I'd also move the drainboard on the cleanup sink to the other side so that the prep side is on the range side if you ever have large batches of produce that can be put there. BTW - our new (vintage) sink has an attached drainboard and so we don't use the basket type dish drainer you are showing in your layout any longer. I love how it looks neater and there used to be some stuff that went in the drying rack and never seemed to come out. I lay any wet stuff on the drainboard itself and put it away soon after. Our new dw cleans better, so we don't have quite as much to wash by hand. YMMV

What you are planning (going down to 24" drawer) is the simplest, least expensive, best solution IMHO. It is probably what I'd do in your shoes. Now....being that my dh is also a GC, my shoes might make me try and sweet talk him into moving that doorway to the right of range further right. It is hard to see how much space until the light switch, but looks like maybe a foot? And of course there may be other issues preventing this idea, so I'm just going to throw it out there for fun. I was thinking if the doorway moved right, depending on space, you could maybe add a small 12" tray base next to the dead corner for cookie sheets/cutting boards. The spacer could be made smaller, think it's needs to be 3". I am not sure what IKEA sizes are offered, but I would exchange that cabinet on the right side of range for a larger drawer base in order to center the range to the uppers. The right upper moves over too so it could allow more breathing room for a 30" chimney style hood. I'm obviously not thinking through this very deeply, so it may be completely ridiculous! HaHa! That would still not allow the top drawer to open up fully, but 15" or so would be plenty for me to grab utensils, hotpads, spices or whatever I put in that top drawer. I would just store less used items or spices in the way back, which would need oven door open to get to. Of course, all this also means redoing the butcherblock from corner to range and over that right side cab. I like that this would allow more space between the range and the corner that someone else mentioned. I don't care so much about that for pulling things out of the oven. I do that from the front usually so that wouldn't be an issue for me. But it would allow you to use the left burners on the stovetop more comfortably is why. Ugh, as I think through what I just wrote, I just talked myself back into what you original planned. My husband would no doubt give me the "look"....Lol! I know it will be great sweet sarahbeth. <hugs> On a happy note, how are the open shelves coming along?