Riverspots, your points are very good. The materials really do match the area. I'm from the east coast and am always amazed how many stone houses are in Austin. In DC only the expensive homes are stone. I do think the levels 'look' neat, but I trip all the time. I know, that is a personal problem :) I actually fell down the stairs into the eating area and broke two toes when we first moved in. My thinking in eliminating the levels, which may be the most expensive part, was that in addition to me liking it more, it would make the house more appealing to more potential buyers in an older neighborhood ??? Perhaps I'm biased due to my own clutzyness. I definitely don't need the second island so if it isn't the right match for this house, I could put a moveable big table on the wall in between the range and the dinning room for my purposes. I will definitely ponder what you are saying. I do like the big open space but I've been told we need to fill it up because our house seems very cold. Thank you so much for the candid opinion Jsweenc, Yes, the house will still be plenty contemporary, just not artsy funky contemporary. You asked what it is, aside from the contemporary style, that doesn't work for me. I thought it easiest to list the things I hate and definitely want to change, and things that aren't so bad but if I'm changing the other things, it would make sense to consider. Things I hate: I have bad knees so the stone floor is KILLING me. The textured stone is also next to impossible to clean. There is dirt in those crevices left from the day the builders left. The levels. I hate going down two sets of stairs to eat. If I had bar stools, I'd still have to go down one step to eat. I hate having to go down a step and then around the peninsula to clean it and then back up the step to get back into the kitchen. I hate having a double sink w/o being able to fit a big pot on either side. I realize that is a completely personal thing and many people love them. Things that I would live with but in a perfect world would be different: I normally like dark countertops but the way the light is in this house you can see every spec of dust from a mile away. So, I'd love light countertops. I'm sick of our contemporary cabinets but I do appreciate how nice they are and I could definitely live with them even though I'd prefer not to. When going to kitchen from bedroom hallway, it would be nice not having to hug the right wall so I don't have to go down the stairs and then back up the stair. Would love not having the stair from the kitchen to the living room. If I didn't have the other stairs, it probably wouldn't bother me. We live out in the country so the pantry is too small for bulk shopping. The house is ginormous, but there are very few closets, not even a linen closet (strange, I know). The current room behind the kitchen (which will be the new pantry and laundry/utility room) is an office with no windows and a tiny bathroom. The current laundry room is in the main hallway which is visible from the entrance into the house. The peninsula, while big, is on kinda far from the fridge, range, or pantry to make it really useful as a prep area so it's almost wasted space. I'm not sure what is ideal, but I know I would like my working areas to be on one side of the island so I didn't have to always be walking around it. Ideally, I wouldn't have to walk around the island to access the sink/dishwasher. I think we all agree on the fate of the big thingy around the stove ;)

Oofasis - you are so right. I am starting to freak out. They are almost done mudding/sanding/drywalling and on Monday will start painting. By Wednesday the cabs should be going in (yikes)! Okay, this might get a little long, so I understand if y'all are not up for it!!! LOL! Long story long, in anticipation I spent Sunday evening (after putting the kids to bed) measuring and cutting up paper to create a "mock island" to see how it would look and get my husband's opinion (we are adjusting/tweaking things in the field, as it appears things are not quite what they seem on paper). He flipped. In a calm way, but his comments totally pushed me over the edge into total self-doubt and fear over what this is going to look like in the end. We have hired a prof KD and company, and so far all has been stellar. There have been a few hiccups (Shaw arriving cracked, sink base not the right size/shape, deciding to get rid of the soffits) but the guys have been fantastic and it really has not been a problem so far (knock on wood). Then DH came in and said he thought it looked like we were putting too much "furniture" into the kitchen and that things were going to be too "tight." This from the guy who NEVER wanted to be involved. I've basically had to FORCE him to look at the plans and give me opinions. He and I decided on the layout together, and NOW he's saying it doesn't look right? And then he says, "I've lost you for 9 months to "that website" and all this kitchen stuff, and it seems we're going to end up with a kitchen crammed with furniture like my Mom's house when I was growing up." Could there be a worse insult??? I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was...not mad, just FREAKED. What if he's right? Of course I talked to my construction guy and he is totally calm - "Don't worry, we make changes on the fly all the time, we'll lay it out for you with actual cabs and you can decide what you think," yada yada yada. He made me feel better. To fully explain: we have a very long and narrow kitchen. The sink used to be on the window wall and the main walkway through the house bisected the kitchen right behind the person at the sink. If you were doing dishes and had the dishwasher open noone could pass because the dishwasher came within an inch or so of a peninsula coming out of the opposite wall. The fridge was literally on the OTHER side of the penisula, totally outside the work triangle. It was crazy and annoying. More than once one of my kids came barreling through the kitchen right when I was making my way across the kitchen with scalding boiling water. Not good. So we have pulled the sink off the window and put it in an island. I will have about 42-45 inches of aisle on the work-triangle side of the island to do my thing. The plan was to make the island about 32" wide and fairly long - angled in toward the work triangle aisle at the ends and with seating at one end. That would mean the outside aisle on the other side of the sink (strictly for walking through the house - no cabs or anything over there) would be 36" wide. 2 different kd's told me this was plenty of space, as most hallways are 36" wide (as are ours). But for whatever reason, when my DH finally could SEE it on our floor, the narrowness of the 36" freaked him out. The odd thing is, our hallways don't seem narrow, and the island is open on top - it's an island for goodness sakes - so it's not going to feel closed in...Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to have a wider kitchen, but it is what it is and we are not up for bumping out the whole house - we need our yard and outdoor space as much as we need a new kitchen! :) Anyway, now I'm trying to decide if I want to cut down on the island overhang to provide more walking space on that side. If I do cut it down, though, will this gigantic 3618 Shaw sink (b/c I couldn't get a replacement 3018 in time - plus my kd had mistakenly ordered a 39" base cab for the sink so the 30"er would have looked weird anyway) look out of proportion? I am undermounting it, so hopefully that will help. UGH. I can't wait to just get it all in and see what is what. In any event, my GC said do not worry, we can play with things when we put the cabs in. They will show me all my options and it will look fabulous. And in his mind, 36" is just fine. But as he was saying this he said, "don't mention it to 'kd' because she gets nervous when things are changed - she was really nervous about taking the soffits out because she would have ordered taller cabinets." So that got me thinking about the cabinets...the hood...hence this thread. Whew. Long story - SORRY!

Thanks, Lisa. I do plan on going over all the sizes with her. Mostly to make sure my pot and pans will fit. The rest is all gravy, really. Here is my old layout Starting at the fridge. 2 20 in uppers. I only used the bottom shelves for baking supplies, flour sugar, baking soda, etc. I'm not tall. 2 lowers with 8 inch pullouts and drawers. One drawer was for junk, the other had my measuring cups and spoons. The pullouts were useless. I ended up removing one and putting my Panini press in there sideways, because it wouldn't fit in the pantry nicely. The other I kept the hand mixer, bread pans, flour sifter, etc. This was my baking area, where it says "hole in wall". Next was 2 30 in pullouts. That held all my plastic storage, mixing bowls, glass cookware. I've gotten rid of most of the plastic and traded it for glass. I don't have close to the amount of storage containers that I had when this started. Next is the corner cabinet and lazy susan. Used neither. The corner upper cabinet was too deep, stuff would get shoved back and I couldn't reach it. I hate lazy susans. It held 2 jars of peanut butter, seriously. 30 inch upper that held all our dishes and glasses on the 2 lower shelves. The lower is a drawer base. It holds towels, foil, ziplocks, etc. Dishwasher and 20 inch upper. The upper was protein mixes on lower shelf. 5.5 inch open lower cabinet for cookie sheets. sink A divided 30 inch lower with 2 12 in drawers and 2 12 inch pullouts. Pans on the bottom shelf and one pullout. Lids on the other pullout. Utensils and knives in one drawer. Spices in the other range 2 oddly shaped cabinets, upper and lower. Upper was too small to put anything in. Lower was used for grill stuff. Pantry was also problematic. Small appliances top shelf. Pastas, pasta sauces, a few canned goods, popcorn, oatmeal, steel oats, etc. In conclusion (lol), I don't have a lot of fancy kitchen stuff to store. And, much of my old kitchen was a waste of space. I'm pretty sure that I've accounted for everything in the new kitchen, plus some. But, again, I'll go over everything with her. And, I'm sure she will tell me if something is screwed up. When I first went in there with my rough draft, she thought I wanted floating shelving surrounding the refrigerator. She came right out and said it was a stupid idea and it wouldn't work as a pantry. Then, we both realized we were misunderstanding each other and got on the same page. She won't pull any punches.

You can have the functionality of a drainboard as well as a larger sink when needed if you opt for a ledge style sink. I have an insert grid that functions as a drain for drying dishes as well as draining washed stuff. It can be put on the bottom of the sink if I wanted. Anything wet or icky drains directly into the sink rather than as part of the cabinet. My faucet is deliberately set to the left of the sink bowl because my drain is to the left. This provides increased functionality since my drain isn't blocked if I want to stack dishes in the sink. Also my garbage disposal is to the left and thus doesn't bisect the sink cabinet which effectively enables greater storage functionality in the sink cabinet. There is no benefit to a divided bowl in my people's experience. It limits functionality of the sink.