"The trench would be about 7 feet deep and 1 foot wide, thus, the average depth of the coil would be about 5 feet." This tells me that they would install a vertical Slinky, probably with a backhoe. A chain trencher, 'Witch Ditch' would probably be narrower than 1 foot wide and would be a faster install, unless soil conditions do not permit this technique. Avg. depth of 5 feet could mean that the loops are 4 feet in diameter meaning the top of the loop may be only 3 feet below the surface. If this is so, then this may not ideal. Top of the loop should be at least 4 feet deep (minimum) or deeper. Digging should be contracted to someone with the right equipment (chain trencher, 'Witch Ditch'). Even then this may be less than ideal in that it's harder to flush a vertical slinky (standing up) than a horizontal slinky (laying flat) in that any trapped air will reside at the tops of these vertical loops. This trapped air could be a serious impediment to liquid flow as it may form an air lock thus shortening or short-circuiting the entire loop. Bottom line in plain English, it will work - if properly designed, installed, purged and FLUSHED! SR

Thank you again, everyone, for your excellent suggestions. I updated my drawing to have the microwave next to the fridge. I also changed a few other things. Would you please take another look? So I moved the microwave to the left of the fridge, and added a shallow drawer between the shelf and the countertop. The shelf needs to be 24" deep due to the microwave depth and clearance requirement. I probably could get rid of the countertop under the microwave shelf, and make the top and bottom cabinets into one unit, like a pantry but 24" deep. The drawers under the microwave shelf (probably 30"-33" wide) can be used for storing utensils, plates, and bowls. I also moved the 30" sink towards the range. It now centers on the left pane of the 60" french casement window, to allow more counter space (approx. 30"-33") on the right side of the sink. The trash pullout remains on the left side of the sink, so it's now closer to the range but further away from the microwave and the fridge. The dishwasher is now in the island. I think the dishwasher should not overlap with the sink and the dish drawers. Otherwise they will interfere with each other when loading / unloading dishes. Alternatively, I could move the dishwasher back to the right side of the sink. But I am concerned that if I move it back, that area will become too crowded, given that the dishwasher, microwave, and fridge are all near each other. I read in a couple old threads that it's generally not recommended to have the dishwasher across the isle from the sink. But I wonder if my loading / unloading habit could make a difference. For dirty dishes, I usually scrape, rinse, and stack them on the countertop, before loading them all together into the dishwasher. When unloading, I usually stack plates and bowls nicely on the countertop, before moving them all to their final destination. Which placement of the dishwasher do you think is better for our situation, in the island, or between the sink and the microwave? Thank you very much! This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Wed, Apr 16, 14 at 15:42

Uuuggh, I completely understand Chispa! Appreciate your honesty. We currently have Softer Tan in our master bath, the builder painted it and it's one of the only rooms I didn't repaint. I really love it at any time of day.Our bathroom has an abundance of Western Exposure which is what the foyer of our new home will have. That said, we are in NE Ohio and the new home is in TN. I had the shade lighter than ST (it was called Oat Cake at that point) throughtout the the common areas of our house in Southern IL (so not too far from TN) which had the same East/West exposure as this new house and loved it. All the adjoining rooms were medium to dark sage green. The good thing is there is very little, maybe no, competing colors that we aren't controlling. There will be no carpet, we're refinishing/staining the wood floors, kitchen cabs will be painted and we're getting new furniture for the greatroom. I'd feel much better if I can convince my hubby to let go of painting the ceiling dark...which was originally my idea. =/

Thanks for the response, hollysprings. Re: the online interface... I have a party with a financial interest in the renovation in a different country, so that was a part of that decision. Re: the small budget... 1. If they couldn't do it in the budget given, they should have said that it couldn't be done. They didn't, nor did any of the other contractors who gave me quotes. 2. a) According to Remodeling Magazine's statistics, the average job cost for a bathroom of my size is 16.6K. My job cost doesn't include the tub, toilet, lights, mirror/medicine cabinet, or hardware (curtain rail, toilet paper dispenser, towel bars, etc.) or paint; their job cost includes those things but doesn't account for my 60" granite countertop. b) The average kitchen remodel is about 58K. But that's for a 200 sq ft footprint with 30 linear ft of cabinetry. I have ~64 sq ft and 18 linear ft of cabinetry, plus a 6 foot shelf. Remodeling Magazine's number also includes a cook top, wall oven, fridge, microwave, dishwasher, and disposal, plus an island, painting, trim, and custom lighting, whereas my budget didn't include any of those appliances (indeed, I have a free-standing range, which is less costly to install), nor painting, and while they redid the wiring and switches and put in under-cabinet lights, they didn't touch the overhead lights. On the other hand, they budgeted for laminate counters and I went with granite. With so many differences between the Remodeling Magazine example mid-range remodel and mine, it's hard to judge what the cost should be. The best I can do is subtract an estimate of the appliance cost and then divide by a factor to account for the size. I'd guesstimate that this would come to between 17 and 27K. 3. Knowing that an optimistic average cost for the project would be about 10K out of my budget, I put forth the option of doing the bathroom first and then when I'd rented the room for a while and had more money, doing the kitchen. But they insisted that there are labor savings in doing both at once and that they could do it within my budget. Given the estimates from other contractors who bid on the project were only 1-2K higher, I believed them. I did my best to do my research, but it's hard to get good estimates on an unusually small foot print from the information online. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic. After all, I do have porcelain tiles instead of ceramic, granite instead of laminate, and painted flat panel cabinets -- all items that are higher end than you'd expect in a budget remodel.