When I googled greenearth bananas yesterday, that thread you mentioned was the third item on the list! If I hadn't read further, I would have thought greenearh was a horrible company to deal with. It seems there was a teenage boy who ordered a banana, & then got an email from greenearth that they were going to charge him $2 LESS because the plant was smaller than the one he ordered. The boy got mad, there was an angry exchange, the order was cancelled. Then, the boy received the plant, anyway. Greenearth had decided to ship it to him free. That's the kind of company I'd like to deal with! I hope that thread doesn't hurt their business. How does Google determine the ranking of their searches? Here is a link that might be useful: greenearth thread

Clarksburg and Morgantown it is about 3.29/gallon for regular. I used about 35-40 dollars worth a week commuting four days. Thank goodness Eric only has to commute two days a week or he would use over 100 a week!

My $.02 FWIW: I am not a fan of uneven cabinet heights. Also, you can get more storage if you take all the cabinets to the ceiling (you can never have too much storage in a kitchen). It's a 10' ceiling, so plenty of room to do stacked cabinets. Don't worry that the uppers will be too high. Most women need a stepstool for anything above the second shelf in any case. Stacked uppers are a great place to store things you seldom use, but still need to put somewhere. Or, you can have the upper stack be glass doors, which is pretty. Taking the cabinets to the ceiling will also do away with the clutter on top that I see there (I realize it's a model, but people tend to want to fill that empty space...), and do away with the dirt that collects on top of the cabinets when they do not go to the ceiling. Hard to tell from photo, but hood looks like it may be too high above the cooktop. Ideally, the bottom of the hood should be 30-34" above the cooktop for best capture of the smoke and grease. Too high, and you are giving the smoke and grease more opportunity to waft elsewhere rather than be pulled in by the exhaust. I like the glass cabinets, but would not do mullions in them. They can look busy, and it is annoying when you see the shelves not line up with the mullions. I would either do some pretty glass pattern like rippled glass, or clear glass with a bevel. The bevelled glass will likely cost more than the mullioned glass, but I am just not a fan of mullions. Single-bowl sink not double. I don't like fridges next to ovens, as the oven heat forces the fridge to work harder. But many people do this, so it's likely OK. Is there landing space for things going out of/into the fridge and oven? Or do you have to rely on the island for landing space? That dark granite will show every speck and is very reflective. I would either get it honed so as not to be so reflective, or choose a granite that is not black like that.

If your sink and stove were not going to be a problem with any sort of island (and they WILL BE), then I would suggest the Ikea Forhoja kitchen cart <http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80035920/> My kitchen is 11 ft wide, and it is perfect in it. But I can walk between my stove and sink and not have it in the way. It is in the way between my sink and refrigerator, but I just remove what I need from the refrigerator before I start preparing food, and I put it on the island cart. Then I can easily reach it from all three other walls. At $109, it might be worth trying - you won't have invested much. I painted the base of mine black to make it disappear, and I've oiled the top multiple times. It's very well-made - solid wood. It could certainly be stained if you are wanting "wood".