That's hilarious! Kind of funny that there's a wooden leg on my craigslist but it's not free. Here's what it says: As stated in the Posting Title it is a wooden leg that dates to the civil war time. I purchased this from and estate in Livingston, Texas, in 1982, and the 90 some year old lady told me that it belonged to her grandfather who lost his leg in the civil war. The bottom wood is made like a buggy axle and is held on the same way with a forged iron ring. Top wood shows where tac's held leather and straps.

FWIW, the "stick" that came with our 18"H x 30"W x 27"D 300 CFM VAH was yellow pine - a very tough wood. We installed the hood with two screws through the "stick" into the wall studs, two screws through the back of the hood into the "stick" and two additional screws through the back of the hood into the studs. We removed the deflector, the air box and the blower from the hood, which significantly reduced the weight. I used two 2x4's with notches in the end running diagonally to the bese of the opposite cabinets to support the hood while we fastened it in place. We had no mishaps and no surprises.

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback--coming from this community, it carries a lot of weight!! rmkitchen--Just wanted to thank you and let you know that you and your kitchen were very inspiring and helpful to me! pluckymama--I'll try to post a close up of the granite tonight. jeannie kitchen--The paint is Benjamin Moore Nantucket Grey. kateskouros, positano and jennabanenna--I ordered the pendants from bellacor.com. This was my third or fourth purchase from them--all problem-free. mustbnuts--I will try to post a picture of the sink and dark granite tonight. bestyears--The rug is from Ballard Designs; it's indoor/outdoor (the space where I have it is a direct path from our back door to the garage--heavy traffic!). There were several from Ballard that I wavered between. I would say that it's definitely more of a dark brown vs. taupe--not sure how that color is reading on your monitor. I'll try to post a link below. lynn2006--The floors were put in to go with existing hardwood already in the house...they're pre-finished oak (??) in gunsmoke. Don't have much detail here...just told my GC to match it all! I'll try to look through some paperwork tonight for more details. cosmo nj--The stools are from JC Penney! I ordered them online--sight unseen. Had to assemble them myself, but it was easy and they were so reasonably priced, I couldn't resist. stiles--Believe it or not, after worrying so much about the length of the island, I can't remember exactly how long it is! I think it's just over 11 feet. And you nailed it with the clean-up comment--so easy! Another thing that makes it work is that I can reach the sink from the other side of the island really easily. Plus our aisles are pretty wide and both ends of the island are open, so I think that helps a lot. minette99--Thank you! Here are the shots of the two sets of uppers I'm thinking of adding the corbels to: Not sure if a corbel would look odd butted up against the wall on this one:

I agree with the others, but I'm not quite as emphatic, having just finished a large, pressed-for-time renovation. It was hard--very hard--and we lived in the house (with a child) while it was going on, which made it even harder. Being able to still live in another place while you renovate is an advantage. How long have you lived in Seattle? Have you lived here long enough to fully appreciate how dark and gray it is for so very, very long? I ask because I've seen people move here from other areas and buy houses that they end up hating because there's not enough light. In undertaking a large renovation here (Seattle), I think it's important to be very sure that the house has enough light for you. We ended up adding a couple of windows and some skylights when we did our renovation, and that was as a direct result of having lived here for a while and realizing that there were certain areas of our house where we were desperate for more light. It's hard to know these things without having lived in the house. If you do decided to go ahead, please think carefully about how much natural light you get there. Don't decide based on the light in there over the next few days when it's supposed to be sunnier! In this climate, I really think that fewer uppers and more windows (even with a brick exterior) can help make a kitchen more enjoyable. I do agree with the others that not having lived in the house makes a rushed renovation even harder. We did ours in a similar kind of rush to what you're planning. However, we had lived here for years first, and we knew what issues we had to fix. We'd talked about incorporating two spaces into the kitchen for years. All that casual talk for years ahead of time helped make our very rushed decisions much easier. I can't imagine trying to make all those decisions without having had the basic ideas already in mind from before. If you do decide to go ahead, please post your layouts here and let people go over them. There is a huge amount of wisdom here, and that's something you have on your side--you've found GW! Take advantage of the experience and knowledge you'll get here. It's very helpful to people here if you post both your current kitchen layout and a legible floorplan of your entire first floor. Good luck!