I love to cook. When I'm stressed, or sometimes just when I'm bored, I'll go on a full out cooking spree and make several labor intensive things to put into the freezer. One of my "new mom" gifts to my D-i-L was to spend 2 days cooking at their house and putting foil baking trays into the freezer of lasagna, stuffed shells, meatloaf, golumpki's, enchilada's, some containers of soups and some of sauce. I cook some pretty great meals in my galley kitchen on my boat, but I'm so looking forward to our new house with a real kitchen, full size stove and working oven again! OH, and a refrigerator where I can open the door and see what's in it, and not have to go diving into it from the top, like on the boat.

Stacey - Must be a bit of lens trickery. I actually had no idea, but I just measured and the nature room windows are actually a bit higher than the kitchen window. I was worried about the 18" rule, so I placed them higher than I would if I had it to do over again. (glazing The difference in mine is only like 4 inches, but I don't even notice it. I DO notice the difference between the windows and the slider that you can kinda see here. I'm going to "fix" that with window treatments and it will actually work out pretty well. 10" seems like a lot. It must be a shed roof that slopes down quite a bit from the house. I don't know that I'd spend the extra $$ for only 2 inches, but I've done crazier things for what seems like a small detail. Maybe you can somehow make it a "feature" that they're lower? Or do some trickery with window treatments? Sorry I'm no help. Could post some pics of what you're dealing with ?

Maybe this one? I didn't look really carefully, but saw the Motawi name and that the kitchen had been featured in a magazine (although not necessarily recently).... Here is a link that might be useful: Look at vwhippiechick's post on 4/29/08 at 21:56

Thank you so much, Lydiasmomma! Yes those metal cabinets with the drainboard sinks are charming. I have to admit that we were pretty hard on the enamel finish though, and the former owners must have been, too. I adored the drainboards, but not trying to keep the sink portion looking nice. Bar Keeper's Friend was the only thing that kept it decent, and even then it seemed tough on it. I about choked when I found out that the sink could have lead in it too. But then I decided we weren't going around licking it, so hey. What I'm really trying to say is, enjoy your new sink! : ) Yes, the exposed beam was absolutely structural. We had to jack up the house after we moved in, and when we did so, we watched the areas where it was pegged together (that had come loose as the house sagged) go back together tightly again. Whoa.