nosoccermom, I would love to have my laundry in a basement again, because of peace and quiet, and out of sight. I would love to have it there, so that I could have canvas hampers for different loads of laundry and have them out of sight, and I have several things, that I dont put in the dryer, that I put on a clothes drying rack, and I hate having to set it up in the laundry room. My laundry room is quite large, and is actually a mud room/laundry combination. My back door opens up into it, and there is full bath at the other end of it. Also, in our last house, I had a drain hose pop out and flood the entire laundry room, and part of my hallway, so would love to have the washer and dryer in a basement, next to a floor drain. This house and my last house are the only 2 houses, I have ever lived in, that didnt have a basement laundry, and it is the one thing, I miss the most.

Definitely larger living area. My house is 1168 sf. The bedrooms are small (the second one is Teeny!), but the living area is nice and roomy. It helps that the layout is very open - I could easily entertain 15 people in this little house. I live alone, so that does help since I only have one bathroom. To make the bedroom more spacious, I put my highboy dresser inside the closet. I still have a regular long/low dresser in the room. I am probably going to get rid of both and put a closet system in. They are really easy to DIY, did it in my last home, and they eliminate the need for dressers. My closet is 6' wide, so I have nice space to work with.

I haven't read the other posts, so maybe someone else has already mentioned this. I've had the MW over the range, and really disliked it. No head room, DH would want to warm up something while I was cooking and get in my way, and in your case, I don't think it's very attractive as a focal point from the eating area. Sometimes the MW has to be over the range due to the small size of the kitchen (as was the case in my previous home), but you have space to separate the two in your kitchen. I'd center the sink, put the range somewhere to the right, and the MW to the left--maybe at counter level with a shallow shelf above it so that your cabinets are still lined up so that you could do something interesting with them to make them a better focal point. That would also allow someone to use the MW and the sink with out interfering with the cook at the range. Anne

rmsaustin, This is a new construction home. I had the plumber check the pressure awhile back and it was well over 60. If I'm not mistaken it may have been 80+. MizzGG & OutsidePlaying, I am thinking of going with the Arzo. It will be centered as shown in the picture below. I may also have to use the Delta faucet pictured below for the vessel sinks as my plumber has some apprehensions of using the Kraus vessel faucets (pictured above) that I originally picked out. The plumber's concern is that the incoming supply lines to the faucet are only sealed by two rubber O-rings. I guess this is a different setup than Delta, Moen and other big name manufacturers use to seal the supply lines. He had a faucet with a single o-ring supply line connection fail a customer's house and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage. Since then, that design has left a bad taste in his mouth.