Good Morning All, Raeanne, Happy Belated Birthday! I am so sorry I missed it. I haven't been checking in an missed it. Birthday or not I hope you know how much I love you and cherish your friendship! I hope this year is filled with lots of love and happiness for you. Marci's gifts sound wonderful and that is because she IS wonderful. I got my wake up calls from Gretchen and Marci about being MIA. Thank you two. I have alot going on and I will share. It is with great saddness that I share we lost the vernerable elder goat, Fred two weeks ago. He had been doing so well and I actually thought he was going to make the winter and have a great spring, summer and fall. But on February 19th I walked into the barn and found Fred in his stall. It was not pretty but there did not appear to be any signs of struggle or distress. He went on his own terms and that makes me happy. I was lucky enough to have my DH home who was able to take care of him. We had to be in Albany, NY that morning to deliver a cart that I sold so we had to move him to the garage, deliver the cart and deal with digging a hole in the frozen tundra when we got home about 1pm. It took us til 6pm to finally bury poor old Fred. We sent him off well and he is resting under the white pines beside our barn with his mother and my beloved Paddy. DH took this very, very hard. We are both very raw still. I am sure it's hard for some to imagine this distress over a goat. Well, all I can tell you is that to know a goat is to love a goat! They are one of God's most charming creations! Also, I have been working alot of weekends which is all consuming. This week was deadline........made my goal again this month! I am working again this weekend at a trade show in Strubridge, MA. There seems to be no end to these things. Better now than when it's riding season. It's DH 50th birthday on Tuesday and I am planning a family dinner at my inlaws farm on the 12th. That is time consuming. I am also putting together a scrapbook which is fun but really time consuming! This morning I am tired. I wish I had a weekend before this dinner to get myself centered. On top of it all winter is starting to drone on. We have had endless snow here and it's cold and windy. March is usually when I start seeing the sublte signs of spring but they aren't happening yet! I am anxious to have the snow gone and it seems far off right now. I will spend time to get caught up. I hope everyone is well. Marci and Gretchen thanks again for my wake up call!

I am glad you enjoyed the reading. It sure was a wonderful trip. I am now trying to get all the pics offf my cell phone...sigh ...no memory card...and then I will get the whole thing put together. Will keep me busy for weeks ! c

Wow, this thread got busy while I was drawing. Here's my suggestion for you: I kept the back door but moved it to the far left end. Clean-up area is under windows. The working portion of your kitchen is book-ended by fridge at one end and double ovens at the other. I nixed the nook - just not enough space for comfortable seating - for island seating but I like your latest versions of a table butted up against an island, too. I gave you a more gracious entry to the DR, mimicking the entry to the LR. That entry is bordered by large (est 99" tall, hopefully you're doing custom cabs) pull-out pantry cabs to give you lots of storage. I couldn't tell what kind of fridge you intend to purchase so I opted to err on the side of caution and assume a standard depth fridge (box, doors and handles approx 35" deep). If you plan on a counter-depth fridge, you can increase your island by 4" of so (CD fridges are about 31" with box, doors and handles). I went with the recommended minimum aisles of 42" for a one-butt kitchen (the GW way of saying one-cook kitchen). 36" isn't deemed wide enough for today's appliances. For instance, DW doors are taller so take up more aisle room when open.

Hi cv2014, I still love the look of our Semihandmade walnut, to me it's very warm. We briefly looked into having Semihandmade make panels for the side and the back of the island, but we wanted a more substantial edge and it just seemed like we'd have better luck getting it to all work out if we hired a finish carpenter to do the job. We're very happy with how it turned out. You can go to almost any good lumber store and purchase a full sheet of walnut veneer for not a lot of $$s. Depending on where it's used, it could be ok if it doesn't match perfectly with the Semihandmade walnut. The corner cabinet has a filler piece, I think it was around 4 inches, that gives enough clearance so that the cabinet door can open without worrying about having it hit the door to the right. In my case I think I was also concerned about clearance so it wouldn't hit the oven handle as well. That was solved by making the pull-out next to the over slightly wider than originally planned. These are the older Ikea cabinet style, so I'm not sure if the new style has the same kind of corner cabinet or not. Good luck with your planning!