Hi there noopd! You are very timely I must say. I am now at the stage where all this plumbing needs to be installed. Plans underway. Carpenter finished the walls and installed a small window into my windowless room. I enlarged the space to accommodate a 3x5' pan instead of the original plan for a 3x4' pan. I like this much better. I have all the plumping fixtures on site but not installed. Plan View: North Elevation, there will be cabinet changes from what is shown here: South Elevation, again, there are some changes compared to this drawing: 1) Raindance E 420 AIR 2-Jet Showerhead w/ Showerarm. 2) iBox rough-ins x2ea #01850181 (one for the Raindance E 240 & one for the diverter area) 3) Quattro 3-Way Diverter#15930181 to enable 2 shower functions at a time. (not the "Green" version which only serves one function at a time I believe, THANKS MONGOCT!) 4) Ecostat S/E Thermostatic Trim w/ Volume Control #04352000. 5) Ecostat S/E Trio/ Quattro Trim #04354000. 6) Axor Urquiola Face Cloth Hooks x2ea. 7) Grab bars horizontal bar on long side of shower, and a vertical one at entry to shower 8) Kohler cast iron 3x5' Salient shower pan with center drain in Ice Gray. other details in the rooom: 1) Axor Citterio M Single-Hole Sink Faucet, 8.25" tall with handle up/on. 2) Toto Maris floor mounted toilet. 3) Walnut cabinets, vanity and pocket doors. 4) 12x24 tile floor with floor warming system. 5) Stacked Miele W/D 6) Soapstone sink that I will make (I made another sink for my first BR remodel) Other things that are going in is a Fantech system - 2 vents w/lights and a remote 170cfm fan in the attic. One vent will be located in the shower and another near the W/D stack which is near the toilet. Tile that looks like marble 12x24" to the ceiling and wrapped around partial wall into W/D cabinet area. I will be doing the tile, I am nervous about this though. But I have done other tile jobs that are much more complex in layout. I am concerned about the size. I have a leveling system that I will use to help with keeping the tiles flat. It is called Tornado I think. Niche will be installed into the shower space. I am planning on putting it below the shower head and above the shower controls. This is the "cleanest" looking space in my opinion. But I can be convinced otherwise :) Plumber will have to plumb accordingly. Approximation of my materials, the colors might be off a bit due to lighting, and the porcelain marble ended up another brand then shown:

Yes, everything is bigger in TX ;). Big beautiful homes with beautiful kitchens that don't have much storage and are not all that functional. We are building in the Houston area and have a similarly laid out kitchen (although ours has only 10' ceilings). The folks here helped me get it from here: to here: Many cautioned against the big island (too hard to clean/reach the middle), but I just couldn't give it up. Yours is even larger, although more narrow around your eating space. It is quite a distance from your sink to the person sitting at the tip of your island. Overall, the layout seems functional, but like mine did, lacks the cabinet/storage space I felt that not only I needed but that a kitchen in that size house should have. Also, a caution against a stone surround for your cooktop. Before we decided to build, we almost bought a house that had a beautiful stone arch surronding the cooktop and matched the fireplace. Aesthetically, it was very pretty. I worried though about how I would keep it clean. When my husband cooks, he splatters oils, sauces, etc. ALL over the place and I couldn't shake the thought of that seeping into the stone and being a nightmare clean/protect. After we decided not to buy that house (for other reasons), the builder's RE agent confided in us that stone surrounds around cooktops also capture smells. It is porous, so everything you're cooking is absorbed into the stone and can still be smelled months later. Maybe sealing it would help with these issues, but you might want to do some research to be sure you're comfortable with it. That said, we decided to do stone on the front part of our island that will match the fireplace. I do love the look of stone in the kitchen. I don't know if I've been any help, but just wanted you to know that I can relate!

Wow. A lot to digest. Bmorepanic, thanks for a completely different look. I will have to think about your ideas as I work around the kitchen. I have always been reluctant to put the main sink on the island - assuming that my family would clutter up the area with mugs etc. Also, the sink and d/w in that position are far from our kitchen eating area and will generate traffic congestion and extra steps. The pantry zone may well be a good place for the fridge but I still think of that area as the hallway (which it is currently). Lots to ponder. Plllog - my current kitchen which was done about 30 years ago has a 48" sub zero fridge in the empty area between the pantry and prep counter just down from where I drew in the new fridge. It is plumbed, we have never moved it so don't know how it is attached, but it does not have a wall either behind or at either side, just melamine panels to match the kitchen cupboards. It must be attached at the top and bottom. Funny thing about this fridge is that it was, apparently, very noisy so the previous owners had the motors taken out and mounted in the basement below with extended pipes to run the coolant. So it is not as heavy as most SZs. Ventilation is currently on the wall just down from where bmorepanic drew in the stove. We currently have an industrial strength (30 year old!) remote blower on the roof. It still works! I had planned to use downdraft venting which has only a short run under the floor to outdoors under our deck. I could also vent it up to the attic if I find a pretty enough hood, though the view is important to me. The house is over a basement and plumbing is accessible if we take out the lower ceiling (I think). The floors are hardwood throughout the upstairs and I would not want to rip them up to do major plumbing works. My positioning of both sinks is quite close to where my two current sinks are so it would save dollars to keep them there. I haven't really researched the drain situation - it is a bit odd as we are on a septic system and the tank is in the front yard at a level between the two floors, so all the plumbing runs through an old crawl space behind the kitchen wall where the main sink is. There seems to be general agreement that the fridge should not be turned. I could easily take out the broom cupboard and put the fridge on the long wall that the clean up sink is on in my drawing. As I think I said before, I may go for a narrow 24" all fridge and put a really narrow 18" freezer next to the pantry. I'm off to the big city (Vancouver) in a week and can really look at appliances then. Thank you all for the time and effort you've put in. Keep the good ideas rolling ! Please. Carol

Sorry to be slow to respond socal_gal. The undercabinet exhaust fan vents to the outside. The vent pipe comes out of the back of the unit, turns, and goes up inside the wall between the studs at a size of 3 1/4" x 14", above the cabinets it transitions to a 8" circular vent and goes through the roof. From everything I've heard recirculating range fans are largely pointless, and the downdraft fans are not a whole lot better. One question I have is if you go with a downdraft fan, where does the air go to? At one point in my design when I was leery of cutting a hole in my roof, I was considering using the same overhead range hood and routing the duct down the wall, along the underside of the floor and out through the basement wall beneath the deck. So, if you can use a downdraft fan and vent it outside, it may well also be possible to use the same model of undercabinet fan as I did (which can be configured to blow straight out the back) and route the duct down and out in the same way as a downdraft fan would. -Bob