We use a combination of Nickel Plus and K-Phite. It's working great. We spray with both, using a sticker-spreader we got at Tractor Supply. We also add their blue dye now, because it helps us see where we have missed a spot. It isn't very easy to see through goggles, with sweat pouring down in your eyes. Just avoid spraying any blossoms, unless you are really desperate for a blue daylily. We were advised to spray once a week for 3 weeks, then wait 3 weeks before spraying again. I've only sprayed once this fall, since it has been raining off and on ever since. Occasionally, I will have a plant that shows sign of rust, but nothing like it was before I started using the nickel. I wouldn't use anything else. Well, let me take that back. I am going to try some Actinovate on just a few isolated and unimportant plants to see how it works. The only thing I don't like is having to don all that protective gear, but I wouldn't have it otherwise. I'm very cautious. We use goggles, a special pesticide mask we bought at Lowes, chemical gloves (also at Lowe's), rubber boots and a yellow rain slicker. My hubby and our yardman refuse to put on a garbage bag drawstring skirt, but if I'm doing the spraying, I wear that, too. I'll have to get my hubby to take a picture of me in that fancy outfit so everyone can get a good laugh. When the weather is warm, we get very sweaty in all that garb! We start very early in the morning while it is still cool. We have a big tank sprayer on wheels we pull behind our riding lawn mower. It runs on the lawn mower battery. We got an extra length of hose so we can cover more territory. One of us drives the lawn mower while the other sprays. I could do it by myself, but it takes longer to have to keep stopping to move the mower ahead. We wash the tank out thoroughly after spraying and run clear water through the wand when we have finished. Aren't you cold climate people lucky??? Nancy

Ah, weddings. My son is getting married in June and they've planned it as a late afternoon ceremony on the beach next to a lighthouse on the Eastern Shore, followed by a reception in a maritime museum on the same property. It's very appropriate for the couple; she is a Coast Guard academy grad who recently left the military for a job at a major cruise line and he is a federal law enforcement agent at a maritime national park. Her family is local to the MD area although the couple lives here in SoFla. Hopefully the weather will cooperate but if not she's going to move everyone into the assembly space. Very fond of my future DIL but it's an interesting experience being the grooms' parents; we've not been consulted or informed much about plans other than told if we ask. No wedding attendants, and evidently no desire for any variant of rehearsal dinner--I offered to host extended family for a nice private dinner or even do a cocktail reception the night before the wedding for all the guests but the kids haven't taken me up on it so I"m following the MIL 3-S mantra: show up, sit down and shut up :). I keep telling my (only) daughter that she better let me organize a big fat wedding someday LOL. And ardent feminist that she is, she keeps telling me not to count on it!

A month of so ago, I started getting emails from Zillow (have no idea how). They show a picture of a kitchen, the total cost, and then, when one scrolls down, they show a breakdown, by category, of materials and labor. It was a HUGE eye opener for me as I thought cabinets were a MUCH bigger part of the budget than they appear to be. One can subscribe to "budget", "mid-range", and "luxury" kitchens. I think the biggest price I ever saw for cabinets in a HUGE kitchen, was about $30-40,000. Appliances? Often $20,000. Countertops & backsplash were another high ticket area. And labor clearly varied, based on whether there was extensive electrical/plumbing work or blowing out walls. I asked my KD about this (he owns the company and also supplies the labor for most of the work), and he said that in the nearly 40 years he's been doing this, he has seen the cabinet percentage of a kitchen remodel go down substantially. He said this is due to many manufacturers doing semi-custom which cuts cost dramatically. He said it's a rare client who springs for total custom as they rarely need to be able to spec things to the 1/4 inch. He said there are so many ways to work around this and then do NOT involve "filler strips". My own kitchen is going to come in at around $25,000, $13,000 of which is cabinets. But my kitchen is an anomaly as I am reusing my kitchen counters/integrated sink, all the undercounted lighting can be reused, ceiling pot lights were done over a decade ago - only 1 new one added, existing hardwood floors are being used (finished on site 13 years ago), and we're even reusing the Perrin & Rowe faucet - it's still made and now twice the price it was when I bought it. So, in reality, I'm doing a $40,000 kitchen, I just paid for much of the high cost stuff over the years. Did I make some compromises? Of course! I wish the cabinet interiors were wood, not a thin veneer of maple melamine (they will be painted wood on the glass doored cabinets), but it was not worth several thousands more to get this. No one sees them but me and they will be easy to keep and clean. Am I getting every single thing my little heart desired? Again, no! But this is due to the fact that I have an 11 x 15 kitchen and there is simply no room to build in the microwave or get other appliances off the counters (without sacrificing valuable real estate which I was unwilling to do). Is it going to be a show piece? What kitchen that size is! No island, just a $99 Ikea 17" wide cart. I hope this helps you. Try to subscribe to the Zillow kitchen emails - they are invaluable when pricing things.

I'd read the thread before, but couldn't think of an improvement on jakuval's suggestions--I really like the one with the peninsula. That narrow hallway must be a pain, although I understand your space restrictions. I have a 30" opening from the LR to the kitchen, and I thought that was bad. Don't know if this will be real help, but the only alternate plan I thought of is to keep the plumbing on the right wall (I have the plan turned 90°) and pull the bases forward to accommodate the pipe. That would allow you to have a standard depth fridge, and give you more counter depth. You could also have deeper uppers (15-18") for more storage. I put a pull-out pantry beside the fridge, and 15" deep cabinets on the island. I was thinking you could use those for extra pantry storage by mounting shelves on the doors, to make canned goods easily accessible. I added a 15" overhang for seating, but it could be more shallow as your space is limited. With entries to the kitchen on both sides of the island, maybe traffic flow will be improved. I used the 30" range, which is out of the way of traffic, except when someone is coming in from the terrace, but there is space to pass behind the cook. If the window is lower than counter height, the small cabinet on the end can be installed at standard depth, and it could house the MW drawer--or the MW could be incorporated into the upper cabinet beside the fridge. The shelf might need to be the same depth as the fridge box, to accommodate the pipe. I added a shallow cabinet in the corner, just inside the door. That could be a broom closet, command center for a message board and calendar, charging station, or extra pantry storage. Thanks, jakuval, for the templates.