here are some more news why we should be gardening (organic as much as possible)and produce own vegetable at least! Recently, one of my colleague who has been diagnosed with colon cancer. He not have any bad habits, no smoking, no alcohol, very health cautious...but stuck by dread evil. By god grace he is out of danger now due to right time detection and diagnosis. While resting in hospital beds, he looked back his life style, food habits, family history, etc... he concluded that food was one of the main culprit. He wrote me five page long story about the his cancer and aftermaths...to cut the story short, I just copy/pasting some of his points on Why does one get cancer: Causes of cancer; -Environment we live in (e.g., breathing polluted air); -Genetically modified food (e.g., nearly 80% of all food sold in US super markets are genetically modified like your tomatoes, apples); -Food processing and storage (e.g., injecting chicken with antibiotics to "preserve" them; preservatives in all those tin\can food; manicured apples!!); -Polluted water (e.g., dissolved carcinogens in water from heavy industries that may never be filtered out) ...and one can go on... Another story is Parkinson's vs. Pesticides: I just come to know from Dorothy, Rotenone, a pesticide used in home gardens/farms seems to be causative factor for Parkinson's diseases... He is our own family story...My mother-in-law, but call her a mother, she is nice lady, is also suffering with Parkinson's disease.. she used to consume lot of raw vegetables/salads (of course from market) to keep in good health... but that tuned out be bad. I too guess her PD was due to lot of harsh chemical in the vegetables. The use of pesticides in food production becoming one of the biggest threat to health, mankind and nature. My mother has been diagnosed with PD in 2007, she has been treated with many Allopathy, Homeopathic, Ayurveda, and Acupressure systems. but none of these practice/medicines has freed her from PD. Now she is doing yoga, meditation, drinking wheat grass juice in the morning, and also started using stationary bike. I read some time ago in science magazine that cycling/biking will help in brain cell stimulation and blood circulation to brain which may help patients to recover faster... mother tells she feeling little better... We should encourage more and more people to start gardening, growing their own food also bring awareness about the chemical in food. Encourage (pressurize) commercial growers to producing organic food.

We have owned the speed oven for 8 years (H4080BM). We liked it and compared to other options are getting a newer model the H7240BMCTS. We use it 85% as an oven and 15% microwave. Agree with many comments re customer service. Very frustrating not be be able to get any technical assistance from Miele customer service. Recently, microwave stopped working properly, and produced an open flame on the ceiling of the unit. Metal coating came off on rag where I tried to clean up the burn marks. Sure some food debris likely caused the flame I guess, but why was metal coming off with the food residue. Miele was able to offer no information about this event. One online "service specialist" said this was caused by a bent part that distributes the microwaves and is not reparable. Rather than spend $200 on a service call to find out it can't be repaired we put that money into a new machine. Cleaning is difficult (particularly in between the broiler elements and the glass try is just impossible to keep clean), surface seems to really hang on to stains but that did not bother us. Manual is very poorly written suggesting that it was ok to microwave with metal rack in on one page and that it was "not recommended" on another page. Oddly enough we had no sparking when we left the rack and glass tray in on microwave mode (though I don't recommend this). Does anyone else leave the rack and tray in when microwaving? Sparking? Convection cooking was excellent, fits half sheet pans, no problem. Cooking is very even and temperature seems very precise. We use this oven every day - everything from roasting to baking. Its easy to use. Its the perfect second over to our larger range. We like that microwave does not have a turntable (all other similar speed/combination ovens seem to), makes it a lot easier to heat up more than one plate. All that being said, if we don't get more than 10 years out of this unit we will be very disappointed and looking for a new option.

Not familiar with this exact brand, but for whatever its worth, consensus seems to be that so long as you avoid the real bottom of the barrel faucets [house brands, no names, etc,], faucets all function about the same. All the 'decent' ones will have decent finishes and ceramic cartridges. Once you pass a certain price point, you aren't paying for engineering, your paying for design. Given that the P&R bridge on Amazon is nearly $1200, you'd better be getting a LOT of design... I'd look at some of Grohe, Blanco, Rohl faucets-- all very good brands, similar in look, lower price. But if you don't find one you like as well, only you can decide if the extra look is worth the extra dollars.

If I have this right, if you remove the wall a part of the kitchen will be wider than it is now. You're thinking of destroying the wall on the right side of the picture where your daughter is standing. You're also going to destroy the wall (?closet ?basement stairs?) she's leaning on on the left? Ok, well. A run of cabinets plus counter top is about 26" deep, an aisle between then cabinets and island is about 42" to 48", a fat island top is 51"; a skinny top is 39". Chairs or stools must be in minimum 34" aisle, but if you want to walk behind the chairs, think more of 44" or greater. So, you need between (26 + 42 + 39 + 34) 11.75 feet to 14.1 feet. In your proposed plan, the dbl wall ovens, the ref and the full height pantry would need to be on the sink wall. - maybe one of them could occupy the space where the ref is today but oriented in a different direction. Can you fit a pantry and ovens on the sink wall? Is it worth it? Dunno. I can imagine you isolated in the kitchen today. If you did something smaller like opened a doorway to the living room where the ref is and relocated the ref, would that help enough? Conversely, is it ok to have the living room tv become your new best friend?