Well, thanks for all the posts. I'm kinda surprised this thread is still kicking around after all these months. Not surprisingly, our marriage is still in what I'd call "a struggling phase." If I could find (and afford) a marriage counselor, I'd seek one out. Our problems continue and i guess that's just part of life. Last week, he helped my daughter with a thorny problem. He's a professional and was able to give her some sound counsel on a financial matter. I was so grateful that he was willing to do that. And then when he came home that day, he groused and groused about how he had to skip lunch because of *my* daughter and her problems and it took him two hours to do the research and then send her a note explaining what he'd found and how he sure would have liked to have had lunch and blah, blah, blah. I keep revisiting the Ann Landers question: Am I better off with him or without him and I still don't have an answer. He's just so selfish sometimes and he's smarter than I am (by a lot) so he wins all the arguments. My self-esteem has plummeted since I met him and I've gained 25 pounds and some days, I just sit and cry. Still glad you asked?

I'm going to point out a couple of considerations about that layout. They are just in case you haven't thought about it. I'm sure you have as its just about the layout you have now. a. Using the cooktop will sometimes involve asking the person at the sink to move. (Anytime those drawers under the cooktop are opened). b. Using cabinet one will sometimes involve asking the person at the cooktop to move. c. Its going to be harder to get into the corner uppers with a modern hood that sticks out further - perhaps even more than today because the corner upper cabinets look like they might be smaller. d. Be careful about leaving allowance for fillers in the corners and up against a wall - particularly when using frameless cabinets. In a corner, the filler on both sides needs to be the depth of the door AND the depth of the handle plus a tiny bit - so that the cabinets on both sides can open properly. Up against a wall, you should allow for a 3/4" piece of starter molding - except that you may need more to clear your door casing. e. Be careful about wall cabinets with wide doors that open over counters and the amount that the hinge allows the door to open. Looking at the wall cabinet door arrangement over the dishwasher - it looks like you've skipped the first cabinet and put dishes into the second cabinet. You may want to rethink that. You could get brained by the cabinet door or left in the slightly odd situation where the door doesn't open wide enough to be able to pick something out of the dishwasher and put it away without first putting it on the counter to avoid crashing it into the counter. Or you have to walk around the open dw door to put stuff away. This is just my personal opinion, but I would move the dw back over to the left and put the main dish storage on the first cabinet to the right. f. Same wall cabinets - opening the center cabinet prevents both other cabinet doors from opening - certainly not the end of the world or anything.

I am pretty spatially challenged, but I did just wrestle an 11 ft x 11 ft kitchen into something like submission, so I will weigh in here with a few ideas. First, what will dwarf everything else is your fridge. If you could install it so that only the front -- rather than the side as well -- shows from most vantage points, it won't loom as large. So, if you are willing to invest in replacing your windows and moving some plumbing, some variant on this might work: The lower cabinets next to the fridge are pulled out to match its depth. The windows above the sink and DW would be any array similar to those of laurainlincoln (with higher windowsills) or jenwrens (sills to the counter), both of which yield an enviably large area of glass. (Please note that I am pretty vague about the entrance to the kitchen from your 48" hallway. You obviously need a certain entryway width, but it could be achieved in several ways by messing with the fridge wall and the end of the range set of cabinets.) Looking from the DR, people would see the peninsula and either the end of the cabinets flanking the range or, if you prefer, a counterdepth wall. I too took down the wall between my modest kitchen and the DR. My kitchen is very different (yes, I would sell my soul for a lovely run of windows) but from the DR it does show the peninsula and the end of a run of cabinets, with no wall. Your peninsula would be longer and better looking; mine is truncated by a boxed-in chimney and shelves that were added to it to the depth of the countertop. Hope this stimulates the germ of an idea. Cheers. Here is a link that might be useful: laurainlincoln's windows to die for

Fertilizer stakes are awful, in my opinion. They aren't efficient, and they can potentially burn roots. I'd dig them out and opt for a granular fertilizer that can be applied around the entire drip-line. Josh