Lefleur1 and prairiemoon--My sure fire earwig bait. I have never set this out in the evening without having some earwigs in the container in the morning. Note--baby earwigs are grey and turn red as they age so don't think it is another bug. Baby earwigs are ravenous when they hatch and can strip a plant down to the stem in 1 night Bait for Earwigs. Equal parts of full salt soy sauce, cooking oil and (molasses or corn syrup). The molasses or syrup is bait to attract them--the oil doesn't allow them to crawl back out and the salt in the soy sauce finishes them off and makes the mixture dark so they think it is just a hole. Put it in a small container��" I use those small scoops from laundry soap and place a stone on top but you can use any small container even the bottom of a soda or water bottle and anything for a lid. Cover 1/2 inch of the bottom of the container with the mixture and bury it up to the brim in the soil where you have a problem with them. Prop a lid over it so it doesn't get diluted by rain and so it is a nice dark place for them to hide for the day--ha. When you prop the lid, leave a small space for them to crawl into the container. You might have to wait a couple of days for it to work, but the first time I tried it I used a baby food bottle and it was full to the brim with little grey baby earwigs the next morning. I was surprised at just how many I did get. Try it. It really works

"a Miele Frige (A rebadged Bosch)((Made in same factory in Turkey) or an SZ (Whirlpool guts)---even the icemaker. " dodge - you are bordering on being disingenuous here. The Miele IS NOT a re-badged Bosch. Yes, it is made in the same factory as the Bosch and Thermador and the Gaggenau, and they all have the same compressor motor BUT......................................Miele supplies all of internal bins, lights, shelves, computer, biuttons, do dad from their own supply chain and has them shipped to Turkey for assembly. Furthermore the compressor is simply a commodity item that has very few suppliers and hence little choice when a fridge manuf. goes to select one for their fridge. Kinda like jet engines, you pretty much get RollsRoyce or GE and anyone who's flown commercial lately can tell you that the experience is far from luxurious despite the RR logo on the side of the engine pod. "You are getting the same guts, (IE Compressor, compressor controller board and probably some of the other guts as well, as any Whirlpool made Fridge, (IE Kitchenaid, Jenn-air etc etc). This is simply INCORRECT with respect to SZ, Monogram, and the BSH offerings. It is accurate if you are talking about a unit that comes from inside Whirlpool's own manufacturing division like the JA, KA, and some Thermadors. I mean you don't think a Boeing and an Airbus are the same thing because they both use RR engines. Do you ? You also have drawn a false conclusion (or are simply mis-representing for effect) Whirlpool's involvement in SZ's manufacturing line. Whirlpool in fact has very little to do with Embraco (the compressor manuf.) They are in fact the corporate parent by default of a Brazilian merger that Embraco underwent in the 90's. The suits in Michigan pretty much stay out of the business though, even in the USA. Embraco's maintains a separate headquarters far from Michigan. Contrast this to say your JennAir fridge - which if I was following you logic would just be a re-badged Whirlpool with Whirlpool guts and all that baaaaaaaaaaad karma that goes with it by your thinking. We could also gleen a bit of insight about the JennAir relationship from their headquarters' location and their annual report. Oooops, they don't have one because big brother (Whirlpool) orchestrates their every move from the mothership. For clarity and anyone new here today - you should also point out your skewed perspective because you have a JennAir that you bought for Below Cost before big brother sunk his teeth into JennAir. Nothing wrong with supporting the home team ; AND JennAir makes some fine units specially of the vintage you have! But, no one shopping here is going to be able to buy a JA fridge at the pricing you got yours for and since they are priced very similar to the other built in brands it has to be compared against THOSE today and not your exceptional deal. Therefore brands like SZ, Miele, Gaggenau, Monogram, and Whirlpools's other re-badged (for real) lines like KitchenAid and Thermador's non Freedom offerings. "My point is, you are not getting anything that is made any better, (function and gut wise)," Your point is wrong here. That doesn't make the JennAir a bad choice. Because the "guts" are not EXACTLY the same. The compressor might be but after that everyone designs and supplies their own stuff. Also, parts can be better - closer tolerances, longer duty cycle, stronger, ect...which makes your conclusion incorrect. Now, that said - none of this makes a fridge (or anything else) a BETTER VALUE. This is what I think you are driving at but the fact remains that all built ins are in a fairly narrow price band. So, I think the determiner is to compare them on their merits such as build quality , aesthetics, long term reputation, and who is backing them up - short term reputation / big corp. or family run business. If this is the case - saying that they are all pretty much the same because they use a compressor from the same manufacturer is just silly.

desert, I plan to get out to some showrooms this week to see what's there and I'm really hoping that will help move me forward a lot more. When we built this house, we hooked up a trailer and drove to Dalton GA and came back with all the flooring needed to do the entire house. It was easier to make choices when we were looking at the entire roll and not just small samples. We got terrific deals and then just paid the labor to have everything installed by a friend of DH. For the majority of other items we spent hours at Lowes. lanval, I plan to give the island a new top along with whatever we choose for the countertops and I know that will help spruce it up more. Originally we were told there was no room for an island at all, but our cabinet guy designed the funky shape to fit one in. I wish we had space to redesign it to allow more of a rectangle shape with an overhang to fit a couple of stools, but there is just not enough space around the u-design of my current layout. Anne, DH is assigned the reno to his brother. He doesn't have time to get involved in the work itself. That's probably a good thing since we end up disagreeing on details most of the time. I've learned we just see things from different perspectives because I'm considering details he thinks are not important. And since the kitchen is not really his domain, I don't want to get into a power struggle over the choices I make. I tried to discuss the timing with him yesterday and he sees no problem moving ahead with the April schedule. I pointed out the events coming up that will coincide with the time the kitchen is torn apart, and his basic outlook/comment is "it's no big deal"...he's just a 'get'r done' kinda guy. I tried to remind him this is not one of his empty houses that is unoccupied and the fact there is more involved than just slapping on a countertop and being done. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard, but I can see the entire kitchen torn apart and me being stressed enough over that while trying to juggle our spring busy season and my DD's precious time left living at home knowing the activities associated with that. Plus the responsibilities of finishing up our eoy business details is difficult enough alone, and now I'm sposed to be doing research/legwork to plan a kitchen reno. I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but when I say 'overwhelmed' I'm not exaggerating. If I could just put everything else in my life on hold right now, it might be no problem, but everything else is not going to just stop. I'm glad you see what I'm feeling about the timing of my DD last days at home. Just last year when she wanted to have her after-prom party here, I had some mini meltdowns feeling overwhelmed with my regular daily workload and then adding more to it. This year isn't looking much better... Anyway, to clarify some of the questions you asked: I broke the measurements into 2 sections since the bar seems to separate it into 2 areas. The nook area is 13'x9'8". The kitchen area is 9'5"x13'2" but that is only the actual floor space. The cabinets are 25" deep so you could add that to the width of 9.5 for a size of the actual room. The garage is on the other end of the house. There is door to the backyard patio in the nook area. The original plan called for columns and a more open floorplan. DH chose to change it to large c.o. I posted pics from different angles to try to show this. I measured everything you asked to help clarify; fridge is 35"Dx35"W - cab depth is 25" - MW cab is 29"D - raised bar is 12"D. I checked the face frame of cabs and it appears the only ones sharing is the section to the right of the sink where the raised bar is. The rest are chopped up due to the DW, stove, and corner that leads to the MW cab. I'm trying to visualize the changes you suggested...I guess I need to sketch it out to understand it completely. Since his brother is doing the reno, it actually gives me more comfort b/c I know is fully capable of any little details I bring up. At this point...right now...I'm in panic mode after talking with DH last night and he totally doesn't get my lack of enthusiasm about the schedule. He makes it sound so easy. The ct can be done in one day, the floor can be done in one day... what's the problem??? Arrggh!! happy, Glad to hear of your wp sucess, painted and stripped. I hung every bit of the paper in this house and have 3 baths of wp also facing stripping.

What about this: 1) It fixes both the problems you were concerned about. The cooktop is now a straight-line walk from the fridge, and cooktop is has good access to both sinks while the fridge still has a landing space across from it. 2) Other benefits include: a) a bigger window b) easy unloading of groceries -- drop them on the island across from the fridge, and then both your fridge and pantry are right there together c) two long stretches of counter -- one the same length as what you had planned for the island next to the prep sink (that was the only long stretch in your plan -- everything else was really broken up), plus a second one even longer than that as your main prep area. d) balance and symmetry -- In your mock-up, the double ovens and associated tall cabinetry make that side of the kitchen much heavier than the other. In this, the main sink, the island, the window, and the cabinets on the window wall are all centered on each other and symmetrical. e) generally it will feel more spacious and airy with the larger window and the 90 degree corners Is there any reason the island can't be a bit deeper? Like four feet deep? As I recall, it backs up against a wide hallway. so that should be fine. It would be nice to have that much more landing space on the short sides of the island and that much more protection for seating people from splashing.