I briefly owned a Bosch FLer that caused vibration problems. My laundry room is on the first floor, over a basement. The placement is such that the two rear legs are directly above the main support beam in the house. As it turns out, my floor is too flexible for a Fler. As I was unwilling to spend the kind of money that would be needed to fix this and still look good, I returned it and got the Whirlpool Cabrio HE. So far I love it, I have not had any problems with the laundry, and there are no vibrations even on high speed spin. I was afraid to get this at first because of stories I have read, but I am so glad I tried it. My salesman wanted me to try the Duet FLer to see what would happen, and said he would change it out again if that caused vibrations, but I was getting really tired of waiting for deliveries and pick-ups (my first front loader had a problem and had to be replaced). Good luck, let us know what you decide and how it works out for you. Just make sure that the store you purchase at is willing to exchange if there is a vibration problem, and that they will not charge you for restocking or delivery of another machine.

Thanks again to everyone for responding. We had not considered a white island, but that is something to thinks about. Wow, kalapointer, thanks for posting the pics of your cabinetry. The colors are very close to what we were thinking of. We're beginning to back off the dark cherry, though, because of worries about its darkening further -- with only one window (and a large skylight), our kitchen might not be as bright as yours. We're not sure. Cabinet buy says cherry darkens, but maple yellows ... editionk, you're right, kpasso's kitchen looks very similar to ours, it's about the same size, and it's laid out almost exactly the same with a similar size island! It's very helpful to see those pics. And in answer to your questions: (1) Do you have a pantry / larger food storage somewhere that I don't see in your layouts? Yep -- in the second picture you can see a door beyond the fridge. That's the door to the utility/laundry room. The pantry is to your left as you go through the door :-) (2) Have you considered changing the door/drawer on the left of the stove to a bank of drawers? Ditto on the one on the left of the sink. Hadn't thought about that. I think the only three-drawer stacks now are next to the dishwasher (for utensils) and across from the sink on the island. (3) You mentioned dark areas/shadowy areas in your house. A dark red cherry finish in a kitchen with just one window might feel too dark. A few glass uppers can lighten the look a lot along with the right paint and backsplash. What are you thinking so far for those elements? We are planning glass uppers on all the upper cabinets around the sink (two to the right, one to the left) and there are 1-foot cabinets on the wall across from the sink that don't show up in these renderings but that also have glass uppers. We were going to do glass uppers around the range as well, but decided that was too much. (4) Will you have a microwave? I think I see a TV in the layout, but no micro (unless it's in the island). Yes. The microwave will sit on the counter in the corner under the TV. My husband doesn't think it's safe to lift possibly heavy hot dishes from a raised area, and I see his point. (5) I expected your door style would be Craftsman considering the renderings and your description, but the Merillat door style is quite traditional. The cherry Paprika color is nice, is that what you're considering? I think that is the name of the color. It does seem to be pretty dark when you look on their website. I am not sure what a Craftsman door style is, but the cabinet design guy has mentioned Shaker style a few times. It's a bit too plain for our tastes, though. We are also considering Kraftmaid cabinets. The frameless drawers are appealing because they have several inches more width for the same cabinet size. But the design we like would be about 35% more (!) than the Merillat Classic because not only is Kraftmaid more to start with, the design is much fancier, including curved wood on the face of the cabinet door. I can't remember the style name and it doesn't look easy to find on the Kraftmaid website. I wonder if those fancy doors would overwhelm our smallish kitchen anyway.

R S, yes it felt smooth, but not "slick" smooth. It does have texture, but nothing like hand-scraped. You can feel the texture of the wood through the finish. I had the Lauzon wire-brushed sample and a sample of the Hamptons series "natural" white oak here at the same time. The Hamptons sample is not wire-brushed and has a semi-gloss finish. I could not feel the texture of the wood under that finish. They definitely felt different underfoot and Hamptons flooring was smoother feeling. The wire-brushed is really beautiful. I would not order a whole house full of flooring based on the sample, though, because I'm not quite sure it's a true depiction of the actual flooring. I've always believed that flooring companies use their very best material for the sample boards, so I'd want to look at a full box before committing. If you do get a box, be sure to post what it's like!

You are correct. The number 5 in each hue family marks the point where the highest concentration of the respective hue parent is perceived. That's why all the 5s are marked with a big dot. Every color - all the colors we like to call neutral, white, grays, blacks - is defined by how much of the hue parent can be perceived. So, as you move counter clockwise from 5 Y towards the yellow-red hue family, the amount of perceivable yellowness lessens and yellow-red (orangeness) increases. You can see the gradation of hue unit lines on the color wheel. So the hue family notation tells you the proportion of hue parent that is discernible in a color AND also the proportion of overtone or hue bias from the neighboring hue family. Important to note - the notations are based on a D65 Illuminant which mimics a relatively balanced quality of light. The quality of light in your space may vary.