But although I don't eat horse, I have to say I'd feel better about eating an animal that has had a good life and been well cared for. Which is more than I can say about, for example, factory farmed meat. I'd rather eat a horse that's had happy life than a chicken that's been de-beaked and spent it's life unable to scratch, penned in a wire cage, pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, and fed feed with protein derived from chicken excrement. The longer you think about it, the more you (well, I) question society's values about animal welfare. But the fact remains, horse owners in the US are sending their 'no longer useful' horses for slaughter for meat export. So, what's the alternative? They're still going to slaughter those horses. Isn't it better that the carcasses are eaten so someone benefits? Or do we bury them, as though they're humans? I'm not meaning to get at anyone, because I know this is a difficult thing to think about, but I'm just exploring the inconsistencies in our approaches to animal welfare.

I don't know how people deal with five to six month winters. Having a garden room attached to the house would be a necessity for me, to keep from going nuts. I wish I knew where I saw the pictures of a working greenhouse in really frigid climates, growing veggies like zuccini in the winter, and tomatos as well, and only a step through a doorway to reach it. They built a good foundation, of course, and oriented it properly to keep it from baking in the warmer weather, brief though it might be. I'm still a big fan of heavy duty shade cloth, much more useful in south Alabama than it would be up north. I'm once again thinking about shading my poor blueberry plants from the searing heat of this drought. The picture you show of the sunroom and the wrought iron lace chair and table remind me of old southern style. I found such a table and chairs at a salvage yard, and for now it is up in Massachusetts waiting to move south later this year. Let me see if I can find a picture of it for you. Your picture of the Sarah Richardson style kitchen is always an inspiration. For my kitchen, I've copied the way she has cabs built above the French door fridge, but not full height cabs on either side. Just low ones. I want windows on either side if at all possible. But we'll see how much storage space we have. About looking skinny, my MoccasinLanding kitchen was 11 x 17. I kept it from looking skinny by eliminating wall cabs on the long dimension, and having wall cabs on the narrow ends. I had a rolling small m/wave cart as an island with a pot rack overit, on a pulley to raise out of the way as needed, and I put a short bar in an L-shape near the cook top, enough room for 2 stools, the bar was regular counter height not the 42" height, and had no backsplash at all. I also installed on the long walls open shelving which let me store things there, but did not close in the walls as solid wall cabs would do. Those photos from 2003-4 are on another computer I believe, unless I run across the CD I transferred them to. That was the biggest kitchen I ever had, and it had its problems but I liked it.

No, the difference b/w a prep sink and a bar sink is not location, the difference is size. Bar sinks are usually shallow, small sinks - sometimes as small as 9" or 10" wide and only 6" or 7" deep. Prep sinks, OTOH, are deeper and wider. They should be at least 15" wide - interior width, not overall width, and as deep as a larger sink - 8" to 10" or more (bottom of sink to top of counter). Mine is 15-3/4" square and 10" deep. Prep sinks should require at least an 18" sink base (for the sink to be big enough), and even better would be a 21" or 24" sink base. Bar sinks don't have to be that big b/c they're primarily used for filling/emptying/rinsing glasses and the like. Prep sinks need to be bigger b/c you're prepping food - which means there needs to be enough room for the food + your hands + any tools you use while prepping. Location, though, will determine how you use it, so even if you have a decent size prep sink, if you put in the wrong place it will probably not be used or it will be used for other uses (maybe even as a bar sink!) I'm chuckling at all the comments about how much space people have but adamantly refuse to put in a prep sink. Whether you actually need one or not, I cannot say b/c I don't know your layouts, but so many people put in large amounts of counterspace that is a waste of far more money than an extra sink will cost b/c the counters are located where they're useless - whether b/c there's no logical work zone in that location or b/c there's no water source to make it work. Those counters then become very expensive drop/clutter zones or maybe just dust collectors! I reiterate - just b/c you work a particular way today, doesn't mean you can't make it better with a better layout in the future nor does it mean that you will work the same way if you have a different layout. Yes, it may be all you know, and something that you've made do with for years - after all, human beings are very adaptive, we can make do with almost anything, regardless of how bad something it is. We're also resistant to change and new ideas and we often have a hard time seeing other ways to do things - even if they would be so much better! We hang on to what we know and either can't see the better or don't want to b/c we're convinced that we want can be had b/c someone has convinced us it will work when it really won't (like those islands that people cannot fit with adequate aisles & seating overhang b/c someone told them they could skimp on either or both and "it'll be fine" - those someones who often have a monetary gain b/c of that island or b/c they don't have to live with it, so talk is cheap and it makes you happy to hear them say it). That's why places like this Forum with people who can look at layouts objectively and give good critiques are so important and invaluable. There are several people here who can give you good advice and even do layouts for you. (No, not all advice is necessarily good advice and if you read enough layout threads you will learn which posters are better at layouts than others....ditto for aesthetic advice, while I will do layouts, I generally stay out of aesthetic threads b/c I'm not the best at aesthetics - others are far better!) Anyway, this whole prep sink discussion, while interesting in some cases, has brought out an interesting mix of people. Oh, and I don't recommend roughing in a prep sink at a particular location b/c you don't know where it might be needed in the future - so there's no point to it. If you know you are going to put one in in a particular location in the future, fine, but I wouldn't do it "just b/c".

You're a forum admin, aren't you? No, sadly, but if they approached me with a job offer, I'd have a hard time turning it down. This forum is too much fun. I gotta say, Summer, you aren't the first one to ask me if I'm an admin on a forum. Maybe it's better that I'm not, if people are likely to suspect me of it!