Hi there Carla. When I saw this topic, I couldn't believe how up my alley this question was. For the last five years, I've been working in selling cameras while going to school. Our store stresses superior product knowledge and I pride myself in keeping up to date on the camera market. Basically, I'm familiar with about 90% of the non-professional cameras on the market. Anyways, sorry for tooting my own horn there. The Yashica T4 is an excellent camera (I own one!). Lore hit the nail on the head in that it's all in the Zeiss lens. The T4 Super Date should run you around $200, about half of it's value being in the lens. The only other P/S camera that might come close to it is the Olympus Stylus Epic (make sure it's the one with NO zoom, and an f/2.8 lens). We did a side by side comparison of the two when the Olympus first came out and we couldn't really tell the difference. You may also want to consider upping your price range to get yourself an SLR camera. While spending more money doesn't GUARANTEE you better pictures, SLRs do tend to do a better job than P/S's. Lastly, Consumer Reports is probably one of the worst places to do research on cameras (though they did rate the T4 #1 for like 4 years straight). The problem is that they rate a small sampling of the cameras on the market and definately miss out on many models, both good and bad. Second, they rate cameras every 2-3 years, while in those off years, just reprint an old report with the updated models and just assuming that the new models are EXACTLY like the old ones. Good places to look are in photo magazines, though they don't "rate" as much as they just list them all and describe them. You kinda have to dig to find the actual tests they do. I'll try to dig up some URLs for you. I hope that helped for now... :)

With respect to the duct diameter: There have been rules for commercial kitchen ventilation ducts that attempt to minimize the amount of grease that condenses on the duct walls (a bigger problem for commercial kitchens than residential kitchens, but still relevant). The goal was an air velocity of 1500 ft/minute, as I recall. Commercial systems typically run at one speed, so this would correspond to full power. More recent study suggests that higher speeds are better for warm ducts, and lower for cold ducts to reduce duct wall impingement due to turbulence. In any case, the flow rate (CFM) divided by the duct cross-sectional area (sq. ft.) yields velocity in ft/min. What will the flow rate be, he asked? Well, we might guess that a 600 cfm rated blower having to pull/push air through a duct at 1000 ft/min and through hood transitions, the silencer, and the baffles, against some (hopefully small but unlikely to be zero) house negative pressure, will only move an amount well under 600 cfm. One would need a fan curve to calculate net flow rate, assuming that one knew all the losses including the baffle loss as a function of flow. Lacking that, I would assume maybe 450 cfm max, given a screened open window equivalent for the MUA, and that the duct is fairly short. 450 cfm in an 8-inch duct (0.4 sq. ft.) is 1125 ft/min -- a good value for the desired span of flow velocities. I wouldn't use a 10-inch duct unless there were a near-term intent to upgrade the range and the hood to a larger size. You can fit an 8-inch silencer more easily into the six feet of duct length that you have. With respect to in-line vs. roof blowers: In this case where there is not a lot of duct length to play with, the possible need for offsets to get the blower away from the edge of the roof, and given the weight of an in-line blower that would have to be supported somehow in the duct length, and maybe some day repaired, I would tend to prefer a roof blower, unless there were some overarching reason for not mounting on the roof. kas

Benjesbride, what you say regarding dining/island makes sense, but unfortunately I have ~11'x16' space to fit in the kitchen. If I decide to rotate the kitchen the way you say it, then my kitchen island will be quite small. I too started out thinking of a longer island and thus came up with option 2, and am not able to find pictures to tell me if that would look ok or not. Secondly, currently the plan is that the Great Room will be mainly conversation area. TV will be in a separate room, so no need to consider TV-watchability. Mama Rachel, your idea of spice kitchen is great! That's the kitchen I started out "wanting". I had to abandon it halfway, however, because of space constraints. My whole house is ~2200 sqft, therefore allocating disproportionately large amount of space to the kitchen would have meant I gave up on some other priorities. Mama Rachel : regarding powder: we decided to ditch the powder because of the availability of full bath on that floor, which otherwise will be guest bath. We also wanted as much storage as possible, therefore decided on having a storage rather than powder. Anyway, here's the original plan. Note that we added ~5ft towards the courtyard and some square footage along top wall (which is facing backyard). I am working on sizing of the entry right now, because I think it's a bit too big for the house, but that space will NOT become available to the kitchen again due to the building rules.

Hey Kelly! I'll give you feedback on yours... Please give me feedback also on mine :-) https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4907784/what-do-you-think-of-this-layout-w-in-law-suite#n=2 The obvious choice in your plan is to swap Bedroom 2 with Kitchen. You're trying to get the large living space integrated with the kitchen to achieve "openness". In the words of my realtor (volume: > 90 closings / year), "People hang out in the kitchen these days". If you're doing a remodel, this is probably the cheapest solution. If you are building new... then read on: Once you swap the bedroom with the kitchen, then you have two problems left: - Garage door into the house enters in face of a staircase. This is awkward and uninviting. - Bedroom 2 is now too far from the baths. This is just... awkward. Solution: See attached photo below.