Just an update to let you know, a dog forum friend has a Vitamix and she generously put a sweet potato in hers and sent me a video of the output. It's good, better than my +30 year old 4.2 amp GE can do. But not around $500 worth better. It's not completely mushed up either, certainly not what you'd called pureed. I tested mine again, food processor and then on the dog and got acceptable output so I'm saving my money till mine breaks and I have to get a new one. Oh, I did buy a juicer to try as well, on Halloween. A Salton VitaPro. Same output on the sweet potato as the very, very much more expensive Vitamix. However the juice pulp is very wet so it's ok for the dog but not a good juicer. It's going back. Thanks everyone for all your help and suggestions.

One more thing: as you walk through the space with chalk lines, etc, mentally prepare a meal, set the table, clean up afterwards, load and unload DW, entertain, etc. IOW, imagine yourself doing all the things that you normally do in a kitchen and make notes of what works and what doesn't. Oops, two more things. =) If you haven't already, do a tally of your kitchen items, grouping them by use and measuring how much space you need to store them. That will also help you narrow down which plan works the best for you and determine cab dimensions. I used blue tape to mark drawer sizes on my counters and set things inside the imaginary drawers to make sure my planned drawer sizes were sufficient. Here's the planning stage for my casserole dish storage: And here is the drawer in my remodeled kitchen: It takes time to do the above but it is so worth it, IMO. If I hadn't done this, I could have ended up with a drawer an inch narrower and not realized that it wouldn't hold my casserole dishes until I was putting things away. How aggravating!

I have an old VitaMix w/ reversible motor. I use the reverse function when I grind egg shells into powder. DSII bought a Ninja that he uses for making smoothies. I've only used it a couple of times. It's a Rube Goldberg contraption and is somewhat confusing to assemble the different blades, bowls/ containers. I default to using my old Cuisinart food processor, the Vita Mix or a stick blender. Also have a regular Oster blender--seldom used. Mostly, I use a stick blender or the food processor. I use the bread maker to make yeast & pasta dough. (Super easy clean--just let the leftover dough bits dry & they flake off.) Kitchen Aid mixer is used for making cookies & cakes that need long mix times for creaming butter & sugar. Use a hand mixer for making mashed potatoes.

I cook a pound of dried chickpeas for hummus, divide the cooked peas three ways, make hummus with one portion and freeze the other two for later batches. The frozen peas are indistinguishable from freshly cooked when made into hummus. I have a really ancient (stainless steel four-sided container w/ a spigot) VitaMix that I found at an estate sale. (I got a plug from VM for the spigot hole because food got into the spigot, was wasted and the spigot was a pain to clean out.) Has reverse which I use when grinding eggshells--Need to do this outdoors. I have used the VM to make cornmeal out of popcorn when I had run out of cornmeal. It did an OK job. Used it to make lo-carb ice cream--cream, sweetener, ice cubes, vanilla--did a good job with that. Used it a couple of times to puree soup. Abandoned that because it's messy and I don't like dirtying up extra containers & transferring hot soup. The stick blender works just fine for that task. I tried smoothies but my stomach does not like all the air that gets incorporated into them. Gives me terrible pains. And I like my margaritas on the rocks. Actually, we like the already mixed Chi-chi's margaritas, diluted with a little water because they're too strong/ too sweet w/o dilution & served on the rocks. Chi-chi's might be just about right undiluted if you're blending w/ ice for a frozen drink. Bottom line is that I could easily live without the very loud beast. I'm just glad that I paid only $20 for the it. Satisfied my curiosity about them. IMO, VM, Blendtech, etc. are over-hyped & overly expensive. To be fair, I very seldom used my old Oster blender before I got the VM so didn't really have much use for a super-duper blender in the first place.