thank you for the kind words! lulumon I posted you 2 answers on discussion side. lwb9 thanks, I LOVE my Gemini. I don't think the bottom stove is too low at all. Just make sure you get that sliding rack it slides so easily all the way out. I think the rack is standard. It a great feature! To be honest I only use the bigger oven when I'm having company or making say a turkey breast. There is very few things that won't fit in the smaller oven. I love that they canboth work at different temps and functions. I think it's the best appliance we have ever bought!

KC: That is exactly the space I have to work with! You really do have the perfect layout for my frig area. I am so glad you posted this! Your kitchen is lovely! I like your island. It's okay to just have a working island. My kitchen is on the small side so my is just a work space. and my drawers actually face my oven and other drawers - they would bump if I opened them at the same time so I just don't. My plain side of my island faces out to my family room. Eventually it will have nice raised panels on it and decorative pieces. Will you be adding hardware to the island? What about a nice fruit bowl? What kind of backsplash are you thinking?

We are finishing our basement for our own use right now -- but before this -- I've always said that buyers would love our home - until they saw the basement. We have put thousands of dollars into our home: new windows, new cherry floors, new kitchen (addition), all new bathrooms, etc... But, when you walk downstairs to the basement you are greeted by nasty walls with seepage stains and dusty concrete floors. We had the walls taken care of (rod holes and cracks) but they are still ugly. Eventually, they will be insulated and dry-walled. My DH insists on a powder room even though it was not plumbed for one -- it was $1,700 for the sink and toilet rough in. I don't expect to ever recoup the investment on our finished basement when it is done -- but we could never sell it the way it is. At a minimum -- I would paint the floor and walls so it looks nice -- that is after making sure walls don't leak or seep. Another interesting option is spray painting the ceiling black -- our friends did this to their quasi-finished basement and I think it looks great.

Yea! The link worked. I don't know why I found it so hard, but it wasn't. Thanks, rhome410. Thanks to everyone for all your nice and supportive comments. It means a lot, coming from this very kitchen-savvy audience! chinchette: I have a correction about my hardware. They are RH's Duluth, but they're brushed nickel, not polished chrome, as I said. After a while you make so many decisions you get your BNs confused with your ORBs. We were originally going to go with cup pulls for the drawers, thinking they were more traditional, but turns out they didn't fit the top drawers, as they have teeny raised panels. But I think I love these more. I think they help to marry traditional with clean contemporary styling, the look we eventually were trying for, more than the cup pulls would have. They kind of echo the handles on the fridge, range and DW, a happy design coincidence. vwhippiechick: I was concerned too about exposed bulbs with the island pendants, but that actually turns out not to be an issue. When we're at the island, we're either working away on a meal, and you need the intense light, or I'm having my morning coffee, reading the paper, when my aging eyes also appreciate the brighter light. If we're having a casual meal, we might not turn them on. Everyone here has said it, and it's so true: Providing a variety of lighting sources, and plenty of them, is one of the big bonuses of renovating a kitchen. I feel like a set director every time I walk into the kitchen, as I decide what mood I want to set with the lighting. I love being in my new kitchen. Oh, and divamum, I totally sympathize with your paint color dilemma. We also had about five or six color samples on our kitchen wall before we decided. I don't have any real advice, cuz I find paint decisions really vexing. I tend toward the beiges, and my husband tries to get me more into colors, especially because our house can be very dark with all the dark woodwork. The way we do it is this, I pick about 10 colors I think work, and put them on, and ask him to quickly tell me which one works. What helps us is that in the two years we've been in this house, we've had to pick paint colors for basically every single room and hallways, usually on a deadline, so we weren't able to agonize for too long. We actually work best under pressure. Good luck with your choices. Your kitchen is looking great.