Congrats on your new gardening adventure!! I wish I had easy access to horse manure for composting. Too bad you're not my neighbor AR Dramaqueen, I'd GIVE you all the perennial herbs you could want. Every year I beg friends and family and yes even strangers to come and take divisions from my yard. Herbs are very, very easy to grow in the ground but in my experience hard to keep happy in pots. If you can make a herb bed somewhere in the yard your herb gardening venture will be so much easier. Particularly when starting seeds, moisture levels are critical. You may want to check locally to see if there are any other herb gardeners close to you. Most gardeners are thrilled to take you on a tour and provide you with starter divisions. I still remember my dad taking me to a "yard sale" when I was about 10 years old. An elderly lady was selling her daylily plants in preparation for moving to a retirement village. We took an instant shine to each other and she spent a lot of time showing me how to pollinate flowers to make new hybrids, how to divide and set plants, etc. You could see that she had a lifetime passion for gardening and was happy to "set the seed" in another person. By the end of our visit to her yard I had a station wagon full of lovely plants and a head full of information. I don't know that she even let my dad pay her for the plants, I can't remember. I do remember that 6 or 7 years later my high school science project was on hybridizing daylilies and that I credited Pansy Corriher for the information and starter plants.

The first three pictures are of La Cornue. You can see the range with a french top and griddle. This range is shown as part of a $100,000 wall of LaCornue. The next four pictures are of the duel fuel CC. The reason I took so many pictures of the oven was to show their new concept. The electric oven has a water reservoir in the oven to generate moist heat. The goal is to mimic a gas oven for cooking meats. Since the moist heat is not good for baking you only add the water when you want the moist heat. However, this is not a steam oven - I asked. The range will not be out for awhile - only a prototype was there. The knobs are at an odd level. Most disappointing in my mind is that the burners are the precision line burners. The oven is large. Trevor was not at the CC booth - he was at modern aire. I did speak to him and he assured me that later they would come out with the open burners. The next seven pictures are of a kitchen from Valcucine. I fell in love with this kitchen. If you like contemporary and have a high end budget - you should look at this kitchen!!! The drawer and cabinet fronts are glass. Draw bottoms are glass - so you can clearly see what is inside. Each drawer has custom divider options to suit your needs. The cabinets open European style - that is the top and bottom separate - that is the strange second picture in the series. I am showing the cabinet in a closed position. The next three pictures show a concept I really thought was both cool and practical. A wooden cutting board slides over the counter top and sink. It can be retracted to utilize the regular counter top. It also slides off the counter to enlarge the counter top if you need more space. In the next to last picture, you can really see how this works. What I loved about this kitchen was the ability to close everything off. I like how the dishes can drain in the sink - behind closed doors - not a new concept, but well executed. The last picture shows some of the gadgetry - wine holes, magnetic bar etc. Then I posted a series of beautiful artistic objects from the show. All high end. A few comments on products which I think are new: 1. Subzero is offering a 36 inch french door. 2. Wolf is introducing stainless steel knobs for the dual fuel ranges and sealed range tops. 3. Sub zero reconfigured two of its largest models to provide chilled water and ice inside the refrigerator. 4. Miele has made a counter top version ($1700) of its wall mounted coffee maker. This is an incredible machine. Maintains personal preferences for coffee settings for 10 people. It makes lattes, cappuchino, expresso. Everything can be programmed to your liking. So if you drink a starbucks a day, this machine could pay for itself in a year. 5. Jenn Air has an i phone app that lets you select JennAir appliances and instantly see them in your kitchen. Its called design vision iphone app. 6. Blanco showed a quick release magnetic spray faucet.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond here! I consider it a red-letter day when GW recognized experts like Casey, worthy, brickeyee, macv weigh in. And kaib, while I don't recognize your GW name, I appreciate the info from someone who's used one. macv, you wrote: In Massachusetts, any structural element that is not prescribed in the one & two family building code must be designed and stamped by an engineer (not an architect). and It is not wise to design one small part of an exterior wall without considering the entire house frame. Start with the whole and work toward the parts or hire a professional. I completely agree with the latter statement about being wise to hire a professional. What makes me nervous now is that I *have* hired an architect for this remodel. According to the MA license lookup, his license is current. However, in light of your comments and my own understanding (admittedly limited), I am concerned now that he hasn't thoroughly thought through this area of the remodel--and possibly has not consulted with a structural engineer on it. Is this something a licensed architect ought to have picked up on? Or at least mentioned to me? He's been licensed for 10 years and working as an architect that long. His drawing has the two window units, each 2 1/8 inches width away from the corner. (The 2 1/8 inches were put in at my suggestion to allow for that much casing--only because it balanced minimizing the width for the view and mimics what's done in the bay in the dining room at the front of the house. But this suggestion to the architect was aesthetic on my part--not structural. I am not an structural engineer, only fairly good at math and analytical stuff.) This is a house built in 1884 in MA. I think the architect is assuming 2x4 studs in the exterior wall. While I do understand that in an existing structure, it's impossible to determine everything about the hidden as-is conditions prior to opening up the structure, I would think that if he is assuming existing 2x4 studs for the plan drawing, that he would have at least noted a 3 jack stud requirement for this header span. I'll post an image of the latest plan drawing so you can see what I mean. Thanks so much for all the great input!

What you can do to achieve safety may not be congruent with what the Code requires you to do because someone who wrote the code wasn't thinking of the originating requirement, but of a derived requirement. The functional requirements are (a) avoid back-drafting combustion appliances, and (b), keep the house pressure close enough to the exterior pressure to allow the ventilation hood blower to pull the needed airflow (and also not pull dust and whatever through cracks in the walls). In cold climates, there is an additional requirement to condition the air so one doesn't freeze, although I think requiring that is over-reach by nannies; most people would tailor the length of their high flow rate needed cooking to a short period given the rapid chilling of the household. If you have to go whole-hog, MUA-wise, then there will be a set of cost elements as hvtech42 noted. If active MUA is needed, and it will be if you want to filter the intake air in the presence of combustion appliances, then you might want to check out Fantech, which has a set of such systems for various flow rates. I concur on the utility of investigating the exact wording of the Code requirement. Some locales take notice of whether back-drafting is a risk or not in their Code requirements.