Hi there, I am so sorry that you've hit this dilemma at this stage in the process. I have the same u-shaped kitchen with almost the same configuration, except we have double ovens where your fridge is, and our fridge is on the opposite side, at the end of the counter left of the sink. I spent many, many hours designing our kitchen and thinking through the walkways with appliances, door swings, stools, etc. Our original blueprint called for our kitchen to be 12' deep, with a 24" island with no overhang for bar stools. In a prior kitchen that we remodeled, which was 12', we added an island with stools and had about 33" walkways, one of which had an over door opening. It was very tight, especially when we had guests around the island, which was basically whenever we had guests! So for our new build, I already knew 12' would never work, so one necessity was that we bumped our kitchen 3', making it 15' deep. Our current island is 24" with 10" overhang, making it 34". With 2' of counters/appliances on the sides of the "u." that leaves just over 3 1/2' (about 43") on either side of the island. Our walkways are "comfortable" but not spacious. If someone is sitting at the island on a stool and I need to open one of the ovens, I just tell them to hold still, and I can open the door and have about 6-8" between the door and the back of the stool, which is fine. Honestly, I think 15' is the minimum comfortable depth you can have in a u-shaped kitchen with bar stools. If I built this same design again, I would make it more like 17' deep. I am guessing yours is more like 12-13' deep? Imagine how much space you would have if you had an extra 3' feet of depth and you will see what I mean. If I were you, I would either: 1) go without bar-stools at the island and just have the regular 1 1/2" overhang all around; 2) if there is room, make the overhang on the end of the counter and maybe round the counter on the end so you could try to get 2 stools in; or 3) if you're really set on having the overhang where you have it, perhaps in addition to moving the island closer to the dishwasher side, you could get a new counter top with less overhang, such as 10" overhang instead of 12" if that is what you have. As I discovered in my last kitchen, when you're dealing with walkways, every inch counts! Good luck!

I've always had success getting old tape or other adhesives off windows by wetting it with Windex (or similar) and scraping with a razor scraper. The windex looses up the goo so the blade takes it off.

Thank you everyone for the helpful responses! First of all, Liriodendron: thank you for letting me know this scary news. I checked my hotmail acct. and couldn't find an email from you but I just wrote you from an account I use much more frequently. Our thoughts and prayers are with your husband and you. Please write back as soon as you can. Nothing new on our end, thank you. I hope everything's okay. Francoise - that's a great link, thank you! I love this site - I just knew I'd great better responses than I probably would doing any extensive google search - haha. Skydog - thanks for the clay bar info as well! The product they used was this strong-smelling red putty which most paint stores sell. They claim it's a better fillers than other re. possible lead paint underneath and having to sand over (or maybe it's particularly re. wet-sanding by hand that it's better for, i'm not sure). At any rate, I can easily get that, and I do have extra spare marble I can test it on. Great idea! Clulessincolorado - oh, you're sweet. :) I do like the old fashioned push button look although I sometimes question whether a polished nickel might not have looked nicer than the ultra bright white. Black might look nice too. At first I thought an aged brass would clash too much with no other brass around in the room, but then I thought maybe the bronze look would do. Glad you liked the white though. It'll do for now - I've obviously got bigger fish to fry in that damned kitchen. Ha - fish to fry in the kitchen. That's not quite a pun, but almost! Lazygardens - well I seem to have the most WONDERFUL luck with contractors...at this point I just assume do the research myself and try to fix it myself cause I no longer trust the guys that caused the damage. As it was, they were back to fix mistakes that were pretty ridiculous. It's amazing, my luck w/ contractors! I wasn't messing around this time so found them from the state lead control website! I was sure anyone they said were certified would be good and they of course seemed good but alas... it wasn't meant to be. Anyway long story short, I don't want them touching the marble again. Fori - I agree and have my fingers crossed. The stain could, I suppose, be worse. Some marble's pink, right? ;) It's so annoying though, that this has happened. I'll be happier even if it only comes out a little more. Autumn-butterfly - thank you! :) I'll let you guys know what i end up figuring out/doing. For now I'm in high gear painting mode as I'm throwing a big baby shower on Saturday and am only painting the kitchen (with a friend's help) TONIGHT! Walls and ceiling tonight, cabinets and all trim tomorrow. VERY little time to dry! FYI (unrelated to the stain issue) - the cabinets and trim will be BM's Fieldstone gray - same color as the lowers for those of you who might remember (not keeping the uppers white - although I'll re-paint them white if I hate them in the gray-green color) and then the walls were a last-minute decision before the store closed (!) so are a hopefully safe BM Linen White. Wish me luck on this, too, please!

Studies have shown a great many home refrigerators' temperature are way off. Too warm. I wonder if that's not a large part of it, plus the coating mix. I don't really love chicken but I do roast one about every 6 weeks, primarily for stock, and I don't find that it tastes much different the next day or two. But I also don't like white meat, so that often goes into a chicken curry salad or something. But I have to say that even when I was on Dr. Pat's diet for a while, I broiled the chicken breasts for four days at a time, and they were just about the same on day four as on day 1, even if I got lazy and micro-ed them. My fridge is stuck at 34º, so maybe that helps, and I store in glasslock. I do usually buy Murray's chicken, for whatever that's worth.