go_figure, thank you! Yesterday was Family Dinner Sunday, and I'm happy to report that the kitchen center worked as expected. We rolled it into the LR to set up tables for dinner, then rolled it back to the play room, later. It was a hit, not only with my grandson, but also with my 8yr old niece and nephew. I offered to make one for them if my brother can find another old entertainment center. He declined, lol. EATREALFOOD, thank you! Today my grandson played 'restaurant'--the menu was: 2 frozen pies, spaghetti and meatballs, and a sandwich. My FIL is in his 80s, retired USAF, a very traditional gentleman. When he stopped by one day, I was excited to show him the almost finished project. I said, "Look at the kitchen center I'm making for K's birthday!" His response was, "Hmmmmmm." I couldn't understand why he wasn't more impressed until I said, "And look on the other side--it's a workshop." Then he was impressed ;).

I may be in the minority here, but I vote for "just say no" to hiding the garbage can in a cabinet. Actually I was thinking about it last night: We have a built-in desk in our current kitchen -- so wisely placed smack dab in the middle of the kitchen. Why, oh why? But I digress: We keep our open trash can in the space under this desk. It's in a convenient spot, but the problem is that my family seems genetically unable to put garbage INTO the can, and every week I have to sweep out the wrappers, etc. that've fallen behind the can. They are also unable to recognize that the can has reached its limits, so they stack more, more, more on top of the can. As much a pain as this is, I was thinking to myself that it'd be even harder to retrieve lost garbage IF it were in a narrow kitchen cabinet and IF the gunk was occasionally getting stuck in a sliding track. I'm perfectly happy to keep my garbage "out". I'm going to have a little "extention" on the end of my island that'll hide the garbage from sight of the great room. Popular opinion? Probably not, but I feel sure it's the right choice for me.

Thanks for the comments and I will check out the rolled veneer. The problem is sending it to be painted if it is rolled up. You can tell we have never done this before. We thought that getting the doors painted with car paint they would be more durable, which we think they are. But we tried to match the paint on our own and it hasn't worked. So it looks like we will need to send all the finishing pieces to be painted as well. We thought about the 1/8 inch skin for it but don't know how to attach it or finish the edge or where to get it. I've included an additional photo of the kitchen there is a bit more done since this last photo was taken.

I am intrigued by the fact that many of you have mentioned composting. I have been composting here where I live for almost 30 years, in my backyard. Up until this last summer I have never had a problem. Suddenly, I had some rats set up home around my house and one even got caught in the garage. I think I have conquered the rat problem now and I now have compost in a galvanized garbage can with holes in it. Those little suckers chewed through the resin cans. And, they burrowed into the receptacle where I was composting yard clippings and were nesting in there. I thought that I had posted this comment yesterday and offer my apologies if it appears elsewhere. Compost can become quite smelly is it goes anaerobic. It takes some effort to keep it in balance. I have never found that the compost that results to be of any real noticeable benefit to anything, but I do it to keep it out of the mainstream trash. It is really amazing how so much vegetable matter can compost into a small heap. I even compost natural fibers from sewing and knitting, paper napkins and some other paper products. Right now I have a tomato plant growing directly in one of the bins that I decommissioned last season. I did mix in some soil with the compost. It was full of compost, but I can't say that tomato plant is thriving. Compost is not the organic gold that many claim it to be. I just can't stand to put all of the easily compostable organic matter into the garbage stream and that is the main objective for me-- to deal with it at the source. I keep two small galvanized buckets in the kitchen. One is for garbage and one is for compost. We don't generate very much garbage. The small compost, of course, gets emptied into the large can. We were in Italy last year and I saw that they have kitchen waste composting pick up. My apologies if I posted these comments twice.