Thank you for all the feedback! I just didn't know what to expect since I was getting this conflicting information. I have to admit that my gut is that I will get a better end product if there are no countertops in place when the templating is done, and that is how fabricator number two (my preferred one)operates. Good suggestions on asking why it takes so long after the templating is done to get the counters installed, especially since the material is right here in town already, and the fabricator only needs to go over to the yard to pick it up. I can more easily see living for three weeks without countertops than the sink (and as my husband said, if there is no sink there is also no dishwasher!). Since we plan to reuse our sink, I think I am going to talk to them about the possiblity of leaving the sink in as someone else here did. I appreciate the personal stories and the advice.

Plywood isn't really smooth enough for a substrate with custom laminate counters. If you read their PDFs on "how to", none of the laminate manufacturers recommend it. They all recommend using particle board. I'm assuming that you could use MDF or HDF which would be more water resistant, but that does not solve the problem of the weak point, the seam, being right there at the constantly wet point and being vulnerable to penetration just from the normal usage of knocking it a bit. You'd still get water intrusion, no matter what substrate you used. And none of the substrates are waterproof. That's one reason that you choose a solid counter like stone or acrylic solid surface. It's waterproof. Particle board is a fine substrate for laminate when the laminate is used as designed. It's not designed to have a seam close to a water source like a sink. It's designed to have a sink drop into a hole and have that sealed with good old fashioned plumber's putty. If having a apron sink or undermount is on your list of must haves, then a solid counter is also on your list of must haves. They go together inseparaby, and trying to make laminate be something it's not is going to be a frustrating wasted expense.

just wanted to commiserate with you on the plumbing problems. We have an old house were the plumbing was added later. They dug under one end of the house about 10x10 with an exterior entrance, and all the plumbing was put on that corner. We wanted to put in a bathroom closer to the bedrooms and move the kitchen, so we had to run the pipes under what would be the new bathroom floor. Kitchen sink had to be installed on the same wall as the bathroom sink, with the pipes and drain/venting going through the wall into the bathroom cabinet, then down into the floor. As it was, the distance was almost too long for the drop and to still be able to hook up to the outgoing line. That would have required a lift pump in the cellar, not something we wanted to consider. This is the bathroom side of the wall. If we ever have problems, our cheapest solution will be to hand dig a trench under the bathroom to access the pipes. Hope that never happens. I don't think we would have room for a garbage disposal either, as the drain goes into the wall and then down. Since we have a septic system, doing without a disposal was not a hard choice.

Here are a some pics and my dilemma. Keep in mind this is my old fridge...new one comes today! Here is how we ended up with this: I have never had an enclosed fridge so didn't think about the peninsula dying into panels or how deep panels were going to be. I "semi" designed the new footprint and took it to Lowe's where the KD took over. (yes---I know......) Bought Schuler plywood with maple fronts cabinets. Although the kitchen designer had the model number of the fridge we were buying, which is a full-size, she designed the kitchen with 24" deep panels. She knew I was trying to have the look of an enclosed fridge. Being that I've never had an enclosed fridge, it was something I just didn't think of until the install started. Evidently she put a counter-depth in the design program because the elevation sketches she gave me showed an enclosed fridge. "Luckily" the panels actually came in wrong and were cut at only 23" for some strange reason and the installer caught it right away when looking over everything. Otherwise he probably would have installed them and I would be stuck. So called Lowe's to reorder the panels and somehow in all this it suddenly dawned on me that a full size fridge was going to be deeper and require deeper panels. I thought "no problem! Yay I can order them at 30!" By this time the KD had quit her job due to the pandemic. The other KD didn't know what was going on so we called in the Schuler rep. She was the one who immediately told me that those 30" panels would be sticking out in front of the peninsula. She asked if we could move the peninsula forward since the other side is an overhang for seating, but we couldn't since it would bottleneck the entrance into the kitchen down to under 36" and getting rid of an existing bottleneck was one of the reasons for the re-design to start with. So we had a dilemma. We cannot go down to a counter depth fridge which was the other option. What I decided was to split the difference and order 27" refrigerator panels. The fridge without doors is 29.5" so I will have about 3" of the side of the fridge sticking out which I don't like, but while I want my kitchen to look beautiful, I value the functionality too. The old fridge that you see in the pic sticks out a total of 32" The new fridge will stick out 34 with doors but without handles (4.5" of that is doors that would stick out anyway) Here's the really complicated part....we will be installing decorative panels on the end of the fridge as we have them on all the cabinets. This is how you enter the kitchen and I don't want that big blank space there next to the peninsula. The panels should be installed with just 1/4" reveal. I posted a photo below of how the panels look that are already installed on the side of the pantry that adjoins to a 17" high window seat. Luckily those face the opposite way from the fridge panels so you will never see both at the same time. I also posted photos of us holding up panels on the side of the fridge (they are NOT the right size panels...we have to order those still---we just used these to look at the right edge as to how wide to make the panels.) Also keep in mind we can remove the quartz backsplash piece if that would look better. That was not originally planned...the panels were going to sit directly on top of the countertop. So do we order the panels with just the 1/4" reveal to match the panels in the rest of the kitchen? Or, as the Schuler rep recommended, order the panels so they are the same width with the countertop, leaving about 1 3/4" reveal on the right side, but then your eye follows the countertop all the way up. I asked the countertop templater guy if I should just lengthen the overhang on the kitchen side of the peninsula to 2.5" to bring it out to within 1/4" of the fridge panel but he said no....I'm now thinking I should have insisted on it. Especially since we have full overlay cabinets that already make the overlay look very small since the 1.5" planned overhang is measured from the box, not the front of the drawers. Note how small the overhang looks to the drawers. And then of course, they had templated for a 1.5" overhang and I only got 1.25" UGH! Every quarter inch there would have made the reveal on the side of the fridge less. Suggestions appreciated! I'm hoping that I will eventually make peace in my mind with this issue and won't notice it but it is driving me crazy right now. I think of all the things that screwed up just because of this one error by the KD that I didn't catch and I am beating myself up for it!