Wow, so sorry I missed your posts, Buehl and Alice462! I need to check this more often. I'm supposed to get emails when someone posts to avoid this, but that I only received them the first couple of days. Alice, the drawers around my rangetop are, from top to bottom, 6 7/8", 10 1/2", and 10 1/2" tall on the faces. Inside, the top drawer boxes are 3" tall, but have 5" of clearance because of being shorter than the space available. The 2 bottom rows are 6" deep with about 8 1/2" of clearance...So I can put pots and pans that are taller than the drawer box, but they don't scrape the drawer above. Does that make sense? My main sink counter and the breakfast area (30" wide to the left of the single fridge) are at 36" in height. I don't like to go lower around the cleanup sink, because it hurts my back to reach down that low into the sink. But where the mixer is, the island and the rangetop and counters beside are at about 34". We like the lower height for chopping, kneading, rolling, and even putting together sandwiches, etc. It's also better for looking into the mixer and into pots on the stove. I'm a bit over 5'3" and the kids are about my height or smaller (so far), so it works great for all of us. DH works in the kitchen occasionally and it doesn't seem to bother him. If he ever did something that took awhile and he wanted a higher work surface, he could do his working on a butcher block or something that would raise it. I don't have rollouts in this kitchen. I had them in my last and didn't like them. I tried to get too much in the cabinet and things would slide or fall off when I pulled it out. I also didn't like that I lost about 3" of cabinet width to the hardware and the pullout sides. I guess it's the same loss as with using drawers, but I find the higher sides of drawers to be much better, and I don't have to first open a door (or 2) to pull them out. All that said, I may add one rollout to one of the island cabinets, because my bread mixer has very grabby rubber feet and it'd be easier to get out if I could pullout it out and lift. I'm considering changing the doored cabinets in my island to drawers, so that would solve the problem, too. I'm so sorry to be so late in answering your questions. I sure hope you check back!

Yup - I chickened out as some peeps didn't like the plugmold. I have more plugs than I will ever need. Sparky did not rip out the sheet rock to install the plug mold but I wasn't there when he did it. I remember one problem - the cold air return caused a problem and to meet code, we had to bridge across on this one - This one is visible if you are a kid or sitting low. I ended up with 3 wall outlets. In retrospect, I might have kept the one in the corner and nuked the other 2. If I had gone with an air switch for my GD, I would have skipped the outlet and switch. The one in my bake zone also has a light switch with it - so I put a plug in there also - It is nice having the UCL switch in 2 locations, but might have nuked both. The corner one has the coffee pot plugged into it and DH leaves it plugged in all of the time. Some GWers don't like the pigtails hanging down - so if you know where your permanent items will live, you could put a few wall mount plugs in place. We used WireMold - it looks more like a power strip than the commercial plug mold. The GC mounted an angled piece of wood at the back edge and the plug mold is mounted at ~45 degrees. Plug mold is in the back - LEDs in front - we had to move them back a bit to decrease shadows

LOOOVE what you've done. That's going to be stunning. I have a small pass through that I created where there was a door and went through this same argument with myself. In the end, I stayed with the flat counter and now that the top has been installed I can tell I'm going to love the extra deep space. My situation is quite different though. It's where I plan to do baking things, and while mine is next to the dining room it doesn't overlook it. It will also serve as a landing zone for things going in/out to the back patio. I'm assuming the DR will have a casual feel and get daily use. Are there views into here from other rooms of the house? I was going to say "flat counter" since it appears you want the two rooms to really function as one. But given that the sink is there I think I would go for the raised counter. You don't want to be splashing into the DR. Tough call.

I agree w/ sweeby on having a few STRATEGICALLY PLACED (strategically placed by YOU) wall-mount outlets for appliances that stay out. Like the toaster and the coffee maker. But not just slapped bang in the middle. For one thing, I'd want them to be LOW DOWN. They are not artwork; they shouldn't be centered. And I'd want them as close as possible to wherever it was *I PLANNED* to put the coffee maker or toaster or stand mixer. (Note; My stand mixer is plugged into the Plugmold; the mixer is tall enough that it completely hides the cord)