Hello Maeve and welcome! I'm from central Illinois zone 5. A cold place to grow roses and a short reason. I'm a fairly obsessed gardener, with 300 roses along with hostas, clematis, hydrangeas, and lots of other perennials since I have lots of shade in addition to my rose garden. It seems minis are getting to be my newest love, and they're so cute...I especially adore the striped or bi-colored ones. It's so easy to get caught up in adding more and more to your collection. This forum is just the place to enable you with all the luscious pictures and helpful advice! -terry

Hey George, lucky you. When we're not working in the yard, we enjoy going to Tenkiller lake and eating at Sam & Ella's. That was the plan, less to mow. LOL I didn't realize how much more time watering and care. But I've met neighbors I've had for years and years by being outside. Thank you for letting me share. The backyard...has literally gone to the dogs. They are professional diggers. I hope some day they'll grow out of it.

Kitchens are very personal to those that use them. One cooks dream kitchen will be another cooks nightmare. Fingers crossed in two years time I will be allowed to build MY dream kitchen in our current house. Any line cook/professional chef will feel at ease here, but most people on this forum would be shocked. I am in a very unique situation where my wife has a very well paying job that means I do not have to work to put food on the table. This is not to say I could not find work, as 13 years in the Australian Army (retiring as a Major) and four years as a Finance Professional (two finance degrees, the highest a Masters) have left me with marketable skills. After moving to Dallas TX via five years in New York City, from Sydney Australia, I was looking at short courses to improve my home cooking. Not finding any courses that were of value I enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu and completed a 15 month Culinary Associates Degree in 13 months then worked in a five star restaurant for nine months. This was all to improve my home cooking. Kitchens for me are a place of work. If you want to socialize there are other rooms in the house for that. If you need to do homework, there are other rooms in the house for that. If you are in my kitchen you are cooking and/or cleaning. By their nature kitchens are hot, noisy, dangerous places. Pets and very very young children do not belong in the kitchen as they pose a risk to themselves and others, both through injury and food contamination. My kitchen will have a commercial range hood. I'm not talking 27" deep 48" wide 1,000 cfm, but a 48" deep 9' wide 2,500 cfm hood covering the entire hot cooking area. The hot cooking area will have one gas wok burner and outlets/space for two 3,500w (240v) portable induction burners, two 1,800w (110v) portable induction burners, one 240v counter top deep fryer, two immersion circulators (110v) in their water baths, and a commercial combi oven. Portable burners and the like allow flexibility in the kitchen and increase prep counter space. Most of my kitchen will be stainless steel with open shelving. It might not grace the pages of Better Homes and Garden, but it will be a bullet proof kitchen that is easy to clean. As much as possible the kitchen will be a separate room, NOT open the the main living areas. For me kitchens are food preparation areas with other rooms for food eating and socializing. A separate kitchen allows the noise, heat and smells to be contained in one room, not spread throughout the house. This kitchen will match my cooking style and methods. I hunt and have a chest freezer full of venison, rabbit and squirrel I harvested myself. The freezer also contains sub-primal cuts of animals that I buy in bulk. I much as I can I butcher and process my own meat and make sausage from scratch. I make all stocks, broths and sauces from scratch. I need large prep tables that are easy to clean to do this. While I do not consider my cooking methods cutting edge, I do own and use equipment not often seen outside professional kitchens. I cook Sous Vide for almost every meal. I use immersion circulators to cook most of my proteins and I use a vacuum chamber sealer to seal product in plastic bags. For those that have seen the five volume cookbook Modernist Cuisine, I can prepare most of those recipes with the current kitchen tools I own. My dream kitchen will allow me to cook them all. I rarely cook one pot wonders. A normal mid week meal, for just my wife and I, will be one course with a protein, sauce, two different vege and a starch. I require five separate burners to heat the food for plating - one for each item. I will/have happily spend/spent 6-8 hours a day in the kitchen for 3-4 days preparing a themed 9 course tasting meal (paired with wine) because one friend from out of town is/was coming over. I enjoy preparing, cooking, plating and serving food at home that is 5 star restaurant quality. When people ask me what do I do, I say I am a Personal Chef to my Wife. I can count on both hands the number of times per YEAR that we order take out and/or eat at a restaurant for dinner when in Dallas. A kitchen is where cooking occurs. While many people forget it, cooking is a very serious business. When you make mistakes in a kitchen, at best people go yuk and a pizza is ordered; worse case people die. To reduce the possibility of food borne illnesses, the kitchen needs to be an area that is separate from the main area of the house. It should not be a thoroughfare for the family and pets traipsing from the carport/outside/garage/etc to get to another part of the house. The materials the kitchen is made of need to be easily cleaned and sanitized. If you are scared to use a pressure washer on them, it is not the right material. My dream kitchen is most peoples nightmare. It is industrial, noisy and tight. Any aisle wider than 36" wide is too wide, any wider I would have to take a step to reach something - that is inefficient. The lighting will be bright and daylight balanced. I spend my pretty-mood-lighting-funds on the lights outside and in the great room, not the kitchen. The only view in my kitchen, other than the four walls, is the TV in one corner. The best views in the house are when you are sitting on the back deck with a cold beer in both hands, not standing at the sink washing a stack of dirty pans. A "cook's kitchen" is one where any cooking occurs. I have friends with kitchens costing $200k+ that only get used to heat precooked purchased food on Thanksgiving - I do not call this a cook's kitchen although it could be. Another friend will prepare, from scratch a 3 course plated meal for 10 in their 800 sq ft NYC studio apartment. The "kitchen" is a bar sink, 2 feet of counter space, 1 hot plate, 1 toaster oven and a dorm fridge. What constitutes a "cook's kitchen" for me is one that I am willing and happy to spend many hours a day, day after day in. For me this is commercial kitchen in a residential home.

Since you're working on a plan with a banquet, I went back to the island: The island is not as deep--only 24" for sink cabinet + 15" overhang, and no other cabinetry, so that you can have seating on both sides. When you are prepping, the 2 (backless) stools will need to be tucked under the counter, and you might need 3 legs for support for the top. The 18" trash can be shared between prep and clean-up. The bev fridge and MW are out of the work zones, but near the main fridge and pantry for easy access to snacks/breakfast items. Alternate MW location would be a drawer under the counter, top right of the plan, or on a shelf above. In that case the area marked EZ-Reach upper would be a dead upper corner, or maybe it could be incorporated into the reach-in pantry. The aisle behind the 3 island seats is a little tight, but with kids sitting there, I think it's workable. ETA, If you could swing another window, I'd give up the upper in the top right corner for a 'wall of windows.' :) Appliance roll-out: