R/F: I'm partial to SZ, having had great performance with multiple units (in multiple houses) over many years, & have SZ in our new kitchen. Beverage Center: have you looked at the Monogram one? Great looking & racked well. We ultimately went with Monogram refrigerator drawers because we wanted food storage capability too. Beverage centers don't get cold enough to safely store food. Range: I was impressed with Monogram, never could see a BlueStar in our area. Both the Monogram & the BlueStar have the power you need, so the slow simmer should be your main decider. If both are satisfactory to you, then it's down to your decision between electric or gas oven. (We chose a DCS all gas 36" range, all burners, because of our wiring and we also have an electric wall oven. It can do low simmer without a diffuser. The infrared broiler in our range is more important to us than the lack of self-cleaning, and the oven can switch to convection.) DW: We've had KitchenAid & it's good, much better than the JennAir it replaced. We have Miele now, which cleans better than our KA and is much quieter. Faucet: We have KWC Domo & love it. We have the side control pullout version on our main sink, and the top control pullout version on our prep sink. Microwave: I'd prefer a drawer in an island.

I've done a few Shutterfly books, and I was sure they did "journal" books and recipe books, but I can't hit upon them when I just looked. You might want to email customer service to find out. I then decided to do a web search and came up with another previously-unknown-to-me site: Bookemon. If you click on "explore," a bunch of people's books come up, and you can actually flip through them (click on the top right "page flap" to turn the pages). Some are more professional looking than others. And many are more type-heavy than photo-heavy, so that should give you the freedom to have a lot more writing space. (In fact, some of the books I saw have no photos/drawings at all.) You should probably do a Google search for "reviews Bookemon" just to see the satisfaction level of the company's users.

The worse problem is the weight of the fabric. One thing to do to eliminate some of this is to make the lining separate & hang on another rod. Also, you can make the lining like a shower curtain & put buttonholes the same distance as your drape hooks & hang it there. I would consider these if I was using the heavy black out lining. I don't care for the pleater tape with 3 pleats & a skip deal. I never seem to finish even. A friend of mine got the "pencil pleat tape" & it worked very good. I has draw strings that you pull to make the pleats. It sews straight across & you at least double your window width with fabric.You would need at least 13' per panel. You sew this tape on & pull the cords. Continous pleats form about the size of a pencil. It requires very little measuring. You draw the pleats up to the width you need & tie off the cords. You can get this tape from Atlanta Thread & supply. It comes in several widths. I always use wider with longer drapes. I make my lining 3" narrower than my main fabric. Put right sides together & seam the side seams. Turn it & smooth things out until you have the same amount on each side as your folded back/side seam. Then put pleater tape across the top& stitch it,fold it down & stitch across the bottom of the tape. Draw up the pleats. Hem your drape & lining separate. For this length, I'd hang unhemmed & let them hang a few days & mark the length with them hanging. I have hemmed many sitting in the floor rather than taking back down. You can probably get a table & sewing machine close enough to hem the lining by machine. I use a blind stitch to hem my drapes unless the fabric is one that a regular machine stitch would blend into. I put a folding table to my left to hold as much of the fabric as possible. Having another set of hands is helpful too. I made some for our church out of upholstry fabric with the heavy black out lining & I felt like I'd been run over by a Mack truck afterwards. I used every muscle in my body wrestling with the weight.

Hey walkin -- I'm *far* from an expert on this--people here helped me on the one I've done. I bought a kit of the precut wood and MDF parts, complete with screws and such, truth be told, just because I didn't want to have to do all the measuring and cutting--sometimes I hit "tilt" and have to take the easy way out. The kit was from eBay. We did buy better foam, however, than the kit came with. And we also wrapped it. Probably way overdoing it. It wasn't hard at all, in fact rather enjoyable in an instant-gratification kind of way (esp. since I didn't have to do the cutting :))--we did do two rows of staples, alternating spaces kind of like sewing stitches, because the fabric seemed to pull between the stitches so I wanted it anchored completely. We didn't edge it with wood, but we could--we just did a simple rectangle which extends 24" above the surface of the mattress (we have a high mattress--if you were to purchase the same set and not have as high a mattress setup, it would be taller unless you cut it down). We love the simple lines. It would be easy to put wood around this if we chose to, or to make a slipcover for it down the line.