raenjapan: hmm, interesting thought on the pantry door. do you know if you can stop them in any position or do they always swing closed. i'm having visions of walking into the pantry and having the door swing shut behind me. i'll have to think on it. napagirl: i'll go scour the FKB islands and see if i can find the sink you're talking about. i think moving the sink might make sense from a better use of the prep space, and maybe even a better source to fill pots from for the stove, etc. would it make a difference if i said we're considering making it the location of the filtered water, so people might be coming to that end of the island to fill a cup frequently? i think your point about the 42 b.i. being 'equivalent' to the space of a 36" standard is a great one. we have a 36" french door standard in our current place now, and the thing i run out of most often is actually freezer space. but i think i may end up with a small chest deep freeze out in the garage. we'll see. in the mean time i'll add in the bev. fridge to the sketch-up. my builder will probably tell me i can't afford it ;p. thanks for the picture of the boot bench, i'll add it to my file. celticmoon: yup, the 'new' layout measures 12' 4" across by 15' 1" deep, not including those bump outs. 2' 4" of that 15' 1" would be the depth on the fridge and oven stack. i hear you on the oven/micro stack, DH will definitely have some things to consider there as a) he's the one who's jonesing on the advantium and wants that to be not under-counter and b) he's the baker. as far as the dining room table goes, i think it will be ok. it will normally probably be in whatever the smallest configuration is and i'll offset it a little from the center of the room if needed. the big opening on the left of the dining is the great room, so the plan has always been to flip the dining table into the lenthwise direction extending into the great room when we're entertaining large groups and the dining table is fully extended. since a dining set is one of the few pieces of new furniture i'm planning on getting for the new house (i'm tired of my very functional but very 'meh' block top hand-me-down), so i'll just see if i can't find something a tiny bit narrower too. several of the farm/harvest trestle tables i've been eyeing are in the 38-40" width. thank you all so much again and i'll eagerly read anyone else's thoughts, layout ideas and opinions! happy holidays to those celebrating, lori

I agree with painting the walls a color that is close to the fixture color to make them 'disappear' (well, that might be overly optimistic!). Whatever you do, don't use any blues/purples because that will only enhance the gold color. In our old summer cottage we had a bathroom with more of a yellow-gold color for the fixtures. I couldn't replace them and because it was a funky summer cottage, I decided to just play up their quirkiness, so I painted the walls purple and made a sink skirt in a purple/gold/orange striped fabric. It was fun. But in this case, I think your best bet is to try to make that gold blend in as much as possible. Rather than a cream, I'd try to match the paint color to the fixtures and then go maybe a shade or two lighter. Maybe a shower curtain in a print... I like this one. Here is a link that might be useful: shower curtain

The room is 12 x 10 but seems larger because of the windows, skylights and high ceiling. It has an angled wall where the sinks are and the big mirrors make that turn, too. There's a 5' double window over the tub and an oversized shower with hammered glass door and panel over a bench area. I've spent an hour now trying to find a pic of a rug similar to mine and I can see that it is not popular right now. But it cost us $500 25 years ago, so I guess we should keep it forever ;) right? Actually, it gets sprayed with hairspray day in and out. Why buy something new to subject to this treatment? Anyway, Navyo or royal blue with softer shades on a ivory background with center medallion, some flowers. How does one pick colors from scratch? I've been to the BM site to see what the Pottery Barn colors are and there's one I sort of like called Homestead Green (kind of grayed blue breen color). I would like to get colors that are "in" so I will be able to find towels that work.....

Missed the other questions---yes, I'd skip the drawer too. Personally I'd never use it since it would be hard to see what was in it. Saw a great kitchen with mixed counters the other day---all cabinets were fir, but they did an island in soapstone and perimeter counters in marble. Worked beautifully. We are mixing wood and stone on two sides of the kitchen, as much for cost as for anything. I'll send some photos of our kitchen when it's done....hoping for Thanksgiving! :) but in the meantime, here's a link to one of my inspiration kitchens for stacking the cabinets. I asked about it here a few months back and got some photos of beautiful taller cabinets, too. We decided to stack because: 1) our cabinetmaker was not charging us much more for two versus one tall cabinet; 2) we wanted to be able to close off the top cabinets and put infrequently used things there so they wouldn't get dusty; and 3) we wanted to use glass, but we have a little kitchen and most of what's in the uppers is not pretty to look at. So we're putting glass in the top cabinets, and will store serving bowls and such up there. We are also only doing uppers along one wall, which helps with keeping it from looking too busy, though. Here is a link that might be useful: Pretty stacked cabinets!