kren...thanks so much...I'm hoping egg is a moisturizing agent and will make me age beautifully through this remodel! :) I don't know how it happened but I am gifted at caulking....it just goes on perfect...I think it's all in the cut of the tip and the continuous flow...no bumps as you pull it across! :) I know I must look silly while doing it, but it goes on like butter! :) Susan, I told him I appreciated his experience...but I did not come here to ask for a professional to restate exactly what I had already stated...just no need in it and while I may be an expert in other fields if someone is asking for help and I really don't have any I don't go restating the problem...he could have easily told me about a caulk that has special additives to prevent mold...never knew about those because I've never dealt with tub surrounds before...that would have been helpful..or he could have recommened a top notch sealer as mentioned below in comments I found on John Bridge's site...these people tried to help and I appreciate that...I just don't see any help in restating the problem...I think I did that well enough. I just won't accept there is nothing to do when it's been done time and time again and the Mapei mastic says it can be used in wet areas except where there is standing water like a shower pan floor...so I did some more researching...and here is some good info for anyone else in my situation..I won't be the last I'm sure..and I'd like to see someone get more help when they go looking..this one deals with a shower surround which to me is much more a risk than a tub surround that is used for baths...my girls don't like showering in a tub... Seriously, mastic can be made to work in a shower. Mastic simply cannot be allowed to remain wet. If it does, it re-emulsifies and the tiles come off. Keep the shower dry and the grout well sealed, and you can delay that for a long time. Also, bear in mind that the bottom 2 feet of the shower are the most at risk. You could reset those, or wait for the problem to emerge, then reset them. I wouldn't tear is down just because it might not last as long as real thinset. It could easily last for a long time. I tear out older mastic showers all the time that are still sound, only the homeowner wanted a different look. You may be a lot older when it needs to be re-done, and you may want a different look by then. Also, I tore out a 15 year old tub shower a few weeks ago that was set with Mapei Mastic.Other than the fact that the grout was milewing due to no vapor barrier,this thing was perfect.The Mastics have been improved even more since then. klark I think squeegin' is good, but IMHO sealing the grout is much more important. You can almost (almost) completely seal out water with a good sealer if you maintain it on a regualr basis. With a little diligence I think you can make that shower last as long as you are in the house. First off,be absolutly Thankful that it was a Mapei product you used and not something else. I have used many Pallets of Mapei Mastic commercially and it is the best out there bar none ,no exceptions!! All those help me...I don't mind being diligent with sealer..so I'm off to find a better product for sealing and will diligently keep it applied...to me that's much easier than redoing the tile..my back can't handle it and my bank account is handling two mortgages right now...so a $5 bottle of sealer a couple times a year will do me just fine.. Tara

Cathy, what kind of wood stove do you have? you could email me from my page. Yes, stoves need the ignighter to light but a match will work, too. I'll get a tank of LP if I go that route. My generator isn't big enough to run the heat pump or well pump. No heat. No water. I could use it when I had the LP furnace. I wish I would have stuck with that. It was only 7 years old. Filling the generator every 4 hours in a blizzard isn't fun though. And it's mighty cold first thing in the morning to put coveralls on over everything you wore to bed just to go outside and fill the generator with gas and get it going. gsciencechick, I know. I'm still on budget but I haven't even started yet. I was just thinking to myself the other day (DON'T do that!) that I hadn't had a vet visit for anyone in quite a while......so I suppose any day now........Almost everyone here is old. I can handle almost any "vet" thing but sometimes I'm over my head and have to go to the office. Global warming. In the past 3 years we've had ice storms bad enough to take the power lines/poles out. Two years ago it was a week. This time just two days; Christmas Eve and Day. It looks like it's going to become a repeating event so I need to change the way I've been living. If it would be colder, it would have been snow and we wouldn't have had any problem. I can cook in the garage on the grill. I wear my insulated coveralls and everything that goes with them. And it takes FOREVER to cook anything. Warm something up is as much as you can do and it's just as easy to do that on the kitchen counter with a couple of tea lights and an upside down tin can. No power in the summer is a piece of cake. Winter is a whole 'nother story. Yeah, the good news is nothing in the freezer spoils.

If you are extremely concerned about aging in place, then IMO the single best thing you can do re. your ovens -- whether range ovens or wall ovens -- is to ensure they have full extension racks. These let you do almost everything without physically having to reach INTO the ovens to lever something heavy out of them. Basting turkeys doesn't require removing the turkey at all; you simply slide out the rack, baste away, and slide it back in. I don't need to bend to baste in my range oven - the height of the turkey is exactly at my arm height without bending over (I'm almost 5'8"). I do have maybe a 30 degree bend at the hips to roll out the rack, but honestly by the time I can't bend 30 degrees I'll have bigger problems like not being able to get in and out of bed or sit in the 'throne room' so I'm not too worried about that since I'll be in a nursing home by then regardless. :) I went with range for the way it works and looks in my kitchen. I suppose in a couple or three decades from now I may have trouble lifting a heavy turkey out of the oven, which will maybe happen 2 or 3 times a year. But then I figure that if I'm cooking a turkey that large, there'll be kids or grandkids that can lift out the turkey. I don't envision cooking a 20 lb turkey for a totally geriatric crowd myself ... by the time i'm that old and hosting a gathering for my geriatric friends, lol, I won't be serving them a turkey dinner. :-) Anyway, that's a long winded way of saying that the decision to go range vs. cooktop/ovens is IMO largely about either looks (wall ovens = more upscale to many people) or usage patterns (e.g. if you bake a lot and wish to have a separate baking center with ovens in a baking zone separated from a cooking zone). Ergonomically, get the full extension racks whichever way you go.

I think your kitchen is really getting there! I like this layout and I think I prefer it in it's current location to putting it in the front of the house. Yes, you would have a fun window to use, but then again, it's in the front & you don't want everyone to see your dirty dishes (I think that was actually mentioned on the earlier thread). This layout truly makes your kitchen the "heart" of your home! Mudroom...sorry, but I think 4' is much too narrow. Our walk-in closet in our MBR is only 4' wide and even w/a hanging rod (2' space) only on the one side it's very tight...I cannot imagine trying to have kids in there trying to hang up backpacks, etc. You need, IMHO, at least 5'...more if you intend to have a hamper, trash, & recycle bins. I strongly advise you to come up with a way to have a 4' space with tall "walls" and "try it out". Kitchen...you say you want to be able to see out the back windows when you prep...how will you if you have a wall w/cabinets all along that back wall (w/sink)? Or, will you only have a wall for the wall cabinets & have it open b/w the counter & upper cabinets? Is that also where you have your dishes & glasses? Trash can placement...while I prefer not to have a stand-alone can (dogs!) I can see how you might prefer it there. I wouldn't move the DW to the other side of the sink (would be a barrier to get to cooktop), but what if you put in a 24" recycle center to the left of the DW? Then you wouldn't need those cans in the mudroom and you would have the trash convenient to everyone w/o interfering with the kitchen work. MW & Oven...good placement for you. While I normally recommend the MW near the refrigerator, for you it appears to work better near the cooktop. It's still on the periphery, also good. Utility/Pantry...will 12" be enough room for the pantry? Remember you need to include room for the wall + doors and, if the utility closet is a cabinet, then you will also need a back wall (you don't want to mount shelves to the side of a cabinet that way...they're not designed for that.) I suspect you'll need at least 4" for the wall w/doors + 1" or 2" for a back wall...that leaves you with 6" or 7" for shelf space. If you're using a 12" deep pantry cabinet (do they make them?), you'll only need 3/4" for back wall + 3/4" for doors...so 10-1/2" for shelf space. Maybe I'm wrong...but I think you should look into it b/f you finalize the design.