Dirty dishes will be going to dishwasher as a drying place. All we are doing really is change the size of kitchen island from 4'x10' to the mentioned size and push out the working space from 42" to 50". Now, the more i looked at it, the more I want to leave it as is except to have the edge of the island in standard beveled instead of semi bullnose. we may change the color of island's cabinet from white to walnut or dark maple and change the inside granite's countertop to black color to make it looks contrasting What do you think of the backsplash, it's kind of plain looking. Maybe put a few dots on every other tile??? This post was edited by Novie on Thu, Jan 23, 14 at 23:05

Okay, so if I figure on losing 3 1/2" of width to the mechanics of the drawer, I'm safe. What I'm thinking about right now is how much storage I have and whether I need to add 2' to the width of the kitchen or not, so that's "close enough" to let me figure out how much storage I'll get from each drawer. I measured my own drawers, but my cabinets -- though custom made and clearly good quality -- were made when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I wasn't sure whether drawer hardware had changed in size. Thanks for that link, Wendy. I knew I'd seen it before, but I couldn't locate it! Thanks, all!

cpartist, I like what you did with the spa. I worry that it will make the swimmable portion of the pool to small, though. Maybe I'll throw that question over to the pool forum. In an ideal world we would just make the pool longer, but it's just not possible with the code restrictions. I also agree about the bbq. Going to brainstorm this with our architects when they get back from vacation. I'm leaning towards pushing the pool against the carport (it was there in one iteration of our outdoor space) and moving the outdoor kitchen to the wall along the entry where the outdoor dining table currently is). It would be nice to walk out from the kitchen to the grill. Not sure it's feasible, though. Looking more at the numbers you crunched on the great room, I'm thinking we take another foot back from our overhang (it's currently 9' to provide shade) and give it back to the living room. Then we could have 4' between the dining / living and 5' between the kitchen island and dining table.

So 3’ to the Right of the table also centers the sliders in the space so that is probably “perfect”. But realistically we will probably scootch The table towards the wall so there‘s only 2’ behind it to allow for better flow on the left side of the table. Do you still recommend centering the doors on the table?