Update- Sorry for the lack of recent updates I have just wanted to forget about Sears for a while. I also did not see the response from Dianne above until now so did not contact her about my Sears experience, so not sure what could of be done differently. Thank you Dianne for your response. Well Sears did come out and pickup the appliances the next day about 10:30, so that went well. The manager at the store said they would be stored in their local warehouse in our city so they would not be sent back to the main warehouse in other city and have to be re-ordered again. We set up a date for them to be re-deliverered on March 29th to our home. I was happy with this agreement and though all was fine. The important part was that they would be here in the local warehouse and not be backordered........ On Friday I picked-up my mail and to my surprise was a check from Sears refunding our money!?!? What ?!?! Last I heard they would be delivered on the 29th. So I decided to stop in a Sears store closer than the original Sears store and ask what happened. They looked up our file and said that the last information in the system was our appliances were dropped off. It showed nothing about them being picked back up or the new delivery information. Nothing. If I decided to re-ordered them the earliest we would get them would be March 31st. They said to call the manager I dealt with at the other store, so I did. He then told me the local warehouse could not and did not store our appliances as agreed and they were shipped back to other city. He would get my salesman to redo our order and call me back right away within 30 mins (still have not received a call 2 days later). So then the local Sears store said they wanted to have my business, maybe my experience with them might be better, and unfortunately not many stores here sell the brand we wanted. All was well until I asked if they would take a check as the other Sears store did, they said no checks. I then offered to get a bank draft for them, once again they said no. They would accept only major credit cards or a Sears card. I said I do not want a Sears card and do not have a credit card I could put over $10,000 on. He said it was because of the possibility of check not clearing before we received the appliances....... me and the other salespeople explained the appliances would be delivered weeks after the check already cleared, he said no. I told him the other store took my check and he went on and on about how the other store does not follow policy all the time and how tired he is of it.......... I said it was quite obvious Sears did not want my money, one of the salesladies said yeah we're definitely not making this easy on you, and I walked out. So I went to another compeditors store and was able due to a new promotion save $1500 off my order compared Sears so I'm pretty excited!!! Plus the wall canopy vent fan we originally ordered was now discontinued and we are getting the fancier newer model cheaper, yay!!! Hopefully we will have a better experience this time, fingers are crossed, lol. Thanks for listening again, sorry to everyone else who has shared their bad Sears experiences and so happy for those who had good ones. :)

I figure after demo part I’d just need to do the insulation between rafters.. then cover with drywall, plaster, paint.. ? Have you been to the attic? Got any wiring up there? Any ductwork? Any plumbing vents? What is your plan to vent the roof? How are you going to insulate? What R value will you have? How do you plan to brace the trusses? What about climate control--HVAC? You will be adding a lot of cubic feet of new space that, in all likelihood, your HVAC system isn't designed to handle. Not only additional cubic feet but also the problem of stratification. How & to what do you plan to fasten the new drywall? You can't fasten drywall into the side of the truss; you will have to install some nailers/ ledgers to fasten drywall to. Trusses are typically constructed of 2 x 4's. Of particular note, the top chord is a 2x4, meaning there will be 3.5" between the roof deck and the bottom of that chord. Which will be buried in insulation. So, you need to realize that you will not see that top chord from the room below. What is you plan to deal with/ cover the gaps in the drywall caused by the trusses themselves? IOW's, what you want to do is a good deal more complicated and labor intensive than what I *think* you are thinking it will be.

First, wamot, I'm sorry you're having to go through this. It's the nightmare we all have while planning and going thru a reno. I'm mostly putting this here for others who might find this thread down the line. I know that the GCs and KDs at each store are unique and that becomes part of the puzzle that we have to untangle as we make our decisions. We first went to Lowe's and had them measure (paid) and do a design. There were some things they wanted to do that we thought were excessive (possibly in the wake of the violations that lucille posted) and I felt that the 'designer' was more of a sales person. I think he might have been handing things off to another designer to do. I never once saw him in the design software. We REALLY liked the GC and tried to make it work because we wanted to work with him. But we decided to check out HD. A friend had HD do their kitchen last year, so they also had the recommendation thing going for them. We had measurements from Lowe's, but we had HD come out to measure to protect ourselves ($49 in the midst of this was a bargain, even though we'd already had to eat $91 for Lowe's to measure). The hard part for us was every step with HD took two times longer. There wasn't such a tight arrangement between GC and store. We had to wait longer at each step, and as such, while I was hoping our cabinets would be here next week or so but we're looking about another month out past that. The big reason I'm posting this here is that we were told the GC would come to measure and his wife did. I was not here, MIL was here and remarked what a thorough job she did and how impressed she was. The measurements went from GCs wife to KD. She tweaked the rough design we had based on my measurements to what the GC provided. She was off in four places. FOUR! So that led to a whole round of 'How are you putting that there, that won't fit?' because I knew pretty much all the measurements by heart. I remeasured most things, confirming my measurements with Lowes' measurements. We tweaked the plan for the 3rd or so time and the GC revisited to confirm everything was good. I'm pretty sure THAT's the point that they're responsible up to. After that, I did some switching of things. I did things like move to a 36x33 Susan to gain 3" more in trash pullout to get two cans and make a base and wall into a tall to create a transition from an area that will have a backsplash (interior wall) to an area that will have masonry behind it (exterior wall). Since no floor measurements will change, I should be good. My KD at HD is very good, but she let me know she was a little intimidated by me (and often regrets giving me an old spec book). And more related to the OP's issue, as I was deciding whether to make the jump to HD from Lowe's, I did some reading. I wish I could remember what I googled, but I read that if you want your kitchen done on time, don't use Lowe's. But if you want to save some money in the end, do. They're known for delaying things for many reasons (misordering, not organizing installs well) BUT the flip side is that there are non-performance clauses in their contracts and so you often get $ off per day for each day certain things are delayed. I'd look things over and see if you can find anything like what I'm remembering. I was concerned with Lowe's because they wanted us to pay for everything (all materials and all labor) up front and when I balked that I watched too much People's Court to pay contracting things up front...they have no incentive to finish, I was told there were non-performace clauses (just as I'd read on the internet). Whatever I googled, I also came across a forum with current and former Lowe's employee's posting about changes to the structure of the way they work with outside contractors etc. It was all very interesting. Good luck. If you end up doing away with the fillers, make sure that at least you don't get charged for what will become 'extra pieces you don't need'.

I can see why something is neccessary to delineate the space, but not want to reduce the floorspace. A question to ask could be how thin any construction could be. This might help with any decisions. It might be worth exploring custom options to fit a full floor to ceiling screen located as I drew out above and exploring materials - maybe frosted glass ? wooden floor to ceiling slats with glazing between? or another material between? or just slats set at an angle ? or slats that can have the angle adjusted so they can be 'open' for light to travel, or 'closed' to obscure the sight line, or partially opened? It could be a combination 1/2 wall with glazing above or slats. Another option might be to consider not having an island and placing the 'wall' at the lounge edge of the island bench so the kitchen becomes a galley style so only the dining space and bench with the stove is visable.