love this forum that you can do a little diy advising! ok the mold in the supply boxes and on the grills probably isn't from the duct takeoffs @ the plenum. it takes a long time for mold to travel that far..and if there isn't moisture & food source it won't spread to that area. it isn't always mold..sometimes it is just dust. so mold/dust buildup at the ducts @ plenum is lack of proper air seal. mold in supply boxes & on grills is lack of proper air seal at the cut in the sheetrock ceiling where supply grill is attached to the box. nine times out of ten..you can solve the issue by sealing supply boxes to sheetrock. see attached picture. hardcast brand #1402 mastic tape is used to seal supply box to sheetrock. this tape is 3" wide. I split the 3" into 1 1/2" lengths. stick to sheetrock and fold into supply box. as the tape adheres to many surfaces you need to be careful to keep it within the area covered by the supply grill. once it sticks to the sheetrock..you'll lose paper if you try to move it. surfaces have to be clean & dry for tape to adhere. and once in place you'll want to press it in place as it is somewhat pressure sensitive. the tape is strong enough to keep the box tight to attic floor on the attic side when installing the supply grill. wash the dust off the grills, wipe inside the supply box & into the duct. reinstall the supply grill. oh and when you remove the supply grills..take a sharpie and mark what direction they faced (throw to window..dirveway side whatever note you need to put them back in same position) this way you'll put them back as they were. I've tried several other brands of mastic tape. hardcast 1402 is the best. the others are 2" width and mastic is thinner, resulting in less strength and useful life. why would I chose spray foam for my floors? I've sealed floors several ways, foam is the easiest albeit more costly, once prep work is done. there isn't enough room to physically install foam sheathing to the bottom of the floor joists. I'll seal any big holes..like under tub then do 3" foam. I've looked at froth packs like tiger foam..but having worked with so many foam companies locally, will just have them do my floor when they are in my area. the software is pricy. we lease it yearly. once upon a time we bought the cd..but too many people abused it. so now it is a download & upgrades to original install. a lot of mastic isn't always an indication of a good seal. it doesn't take a lot if you put it in the actual leaks. you can feel around the duct take offs on the plenum while unit is running and feel some of the leakage. also checking plenum connections to the equipment at the same time. I use mastic tape to connect plenums (after screwing them in place) much easier to seal under the plenum to equipment with tape than painting mastic upside down.

NC, I went back and looked at your original question and I have a couple of thoughts that may be helpful to your thinking about what you want to do. I think you and I have been through some of the same initial processes. We spent months trying to figure a way to make our small space bigger. Given the house configuration (basic 1450 sq. ft. rectangle w/attached garage at the kitchen end) and the property (huge tree out back that is NOT being cut down), there was no reasonable way to make that happen. Once we came to that conclusion, it also became apparent that our stove would remain 30" and the fridge 33" max. I had to give up on the Stages 45 sink - sniff. A 32" sink was as big as I could go, and I'm OK with that. Like your window into the sunroom (I suppose someone enclosed a porch at some point?), some things just are. So you're absolutely right, just maximize what you have to work with. If it were me, I'd prioritize having adequate space for prep and for plating up. If moving your sink to the windowless wall and maybe forgoing the prep sink gives you that, it will probably be worth it. Tasteful decoration, (even if it's not my quail), can make that a visual winner. You mentioned something about your pipes which makes me think you have, mmm, antiquated plumbing. Sooner or later, one has to deal with antiquated plumbing. Speaking of which, have you considered the state of your electricals? Bumping ours up from 1970 to current was not a small undertaking. After that comes the all important storage space. In our case we were highly motivated to lose the cabinets over the peninsula, but we still needed to find space for the necessary kitchen stuff. In part we dealt with that by making the decision to change out the old cabinets for both more space in the cabinets, but also a better cabinet configuration. We chose faceless cabinets (vs. face frames) for just that little bit of extra space that may make all the difference. We also designed out the blind corner cabinets - good riddance! - and added in a cabinet pantry. And lower drawers, love those. For future buyers: when your place is sold someday, you're likely to have one of two kinds of buyers. One buyer will be the young family who has just scrapped enough money together to buy a house at all and will bless you for a good and useful design. Take a bow. The other buyer will be a couple with money for significant renovations who won't care about the kitchen because they're going to tear out the funny sunroom and make a huge living space with a kitchen featuring a $7000 stove and an $8000 fridge (or whatever that is in future dollars). In either case, design this kitchen for you and your family and make it work best for you.

Wow- Sounds like the 'Yeas' have it! A few notes: I'll be custom building all of the cabinets myself, so I can make whatever I want, and is needed. Good call on the dishwasher; I'll remember that. There will be windows on both sides. The house will be in the middle of the woods, so there are views in every direction. To the user's left is a mountain view, but a northern exposure, so the window on their right will face east and have the morning sun. I'll also make sure to have enough room between the sink and the stove. For a very small house, we'll have a pretty good sized kitchen, since there are two cooks. I'm going to have a second small sink on the other side of the room as well. We're undecided as to a counter top material so far. We're on a tight, tight budget, so they'll likely be laminate, at least at first. I also have the wherewithal to do maple fairly reasonably, but I'm not sure if we want the maintenance. Since it will be a funky 'cottage' interior, I may use different surfaces in different areas. I'd love to have a small stretch of marble for rolling out dough!

We DIYd our fireplace/chimney removal. We are not particularly gifted in the ways of DIY either. We did a total gut renovation on the house and our structural engineer confirmed the chimney wasn't supporting the house in any way. The fireplace was pink and huge--maybe 4x7 footprint? Our house is single level with the chimney continuing to the basement. We rented a drop box for the brick and an impact chisel from home depot to remove them. My husband started on the roof and removed brick by brick dropping them down the chimney where I'd gather them in 5 gallon buckets to take to the drop box. In all it took us a weekend and probably $500 in rental fees. The roof was repaired as part of our GCs scope of work in the remodel, so I'm not sure how much that cost, but it was a very simple patch It seems to me that chimney and fireplace removal is totally unskilled labor if it isn't holding up the house. As such, it really shouldn't cost a lot.