Wow, so sorry I missed your posts, Buehl and Alice462! I need to check this more often. I'm supposed to get emails when someone posts to avoid this, but that I only received them the first couple of days. Alice, the drawers around my rangetop are, from top to bottom, 6 7/8", 10 1/2", and 10 1/2" tall on the faces. Inside, the top drawer boxes are 3" tall, but have 5" of clearance because of being shorter than the space available. The 2 bottom rows are 6" deep with about 8 1/2" of clearance...So I can put pots and pans that are taller than the drawer box, but they don't scrape the drawer above. Does that make sense? My main sink counter and the breakfast area (30" wide to the left of the single fridge) are at 36" in height. I don't like to go lower around the cleanup sink, because it hurts my back to reach down that low into the sink. But where the mixer is, the island and the rangetop and counters beside are at about 34". We like the lower height for chopping, kneading, rolling, and even putting together sandwiches, etc. It's also better for looking into the mixer and into pots on the stove. I'm a bit over 5'3" and the kids are about my height or smaller (so far), so it works great for all of us. DH works in the kitchen occasionally and it doesn't seem to bother him. If he ever did something that took awhile and he wanted a higher work surface, he could do his working on a butcher block or something that would raise it. I don't have rollouts in this kitchen. I had them in my last and didn't like them. I tried to get too much in the cabinet and things would slide or fall off when I pulled it out. I also didn't like that I lost about 3" of cabinet width to the hardware and the pullout sides. I guess it's the same loss as with using drawers, but I find the higher sides of drawers to be much better, and I don't have to first open a door (or 2) to pull them out. All that said, I may add one rollout to one of the island cabinets, because my bread mixer has very grabby rubber feet and it'd be easier to get out if I could pullout it out and lift. I'm considering changing the doored cabinets in my island to drawers, so that would solve the problem, too. I'm so sorry to be so late in answering your questions. I sure hope you check back!

Teppy, In my gut I know that I will not do as good a job as you did if I try to paint on my own. You have excellent taste and are very meticulous. Me....not so much. I do have a laundry room I can experiment with if I need to. I am definitely going to get a quote from a painting company, think I found one, that paints woodwork, cabinet and such. They do a lot of work for builders and had excellent pictures online. I have to get an exterior quote as well. When I get closer to actually beginning I'll post before pictures. I tried previously but couldn't figure it out. Maybe I'll take a look again this weekend. Yes, there is enough room for walking if the seating is added. It would be so nice for entertaining, cooking with the kids, kids doing homework etc. We have an eating nook that accomodates only a 48" round table comfortablly so the extra space would be nice plus it's just more social. I want to compare the painting cost vs. refacing. I'm actually hoping it's not that different because then the KD w/the refacing company could be the GC for the whole job whereas if we go the painting route I'll have find a GC on my own. Will defenitely try to figure out the picture deal so I can post. Thanks for the responses. Z.

macfrodge- long, low window backsplash - that sounds amazing! Don't suppose you have any pictures to share? And a Karbon too - I have a feeling I'm going to love your kitchen. Just had a friend over tonight about to buy a Karbon, they were test driving mine. Apparently Preston Hardware carries them now - no one had them in Ottawa last fall when I was buying, I had to rely on the recommendations of the garden web folks. They didn't steer me wrong. Do you love yours? Re: the bianca, you sound very patience, a virtue I'm sadly not known for - but I'm sure your MDF is spectacular in the meantime. Have you considered marble? rococo - I've always loved catmom's kitchen and been tempted by her backsplash. My fear of a "too sleek" kitchen is probably silly. I'll get some samples. Glad to hear that you're a backsplash junkie - I'll call on your help! I'll probably re-post next week with my updated mostly finished (save backsplash and island) kitchen and see what people think. Thanks again. firsthouse - still no decision - so embarrassing! I wanted to live with nothing for a few months and see how I felt about the space. I think I need more than nothing, but probably not the fabulous patterned tiles I was originally considering. Summer has me spending more time in the garden than the kitchen, but I really want to figure out the backsplash over the next month or so. Fingers crossed.

yep that's my kitchen. Sorry it's not in your budget, but gpraceman does have a good idea about granite tiles. I have seen these used in place of granite slabs for the counter, when a budget dictated it. "To Me", they did not look that bad. I had to redo the area of the granite where the cook top is, due to a bad choice I made about cooktops, a 36" semi-circle Caldera. It died in about a year and the company went broke, so I had to replace it with a rectangular induction cooktop, Hence the granite rework. Well I could find Granite remnants (Arandis Gold) for next to nothing, (I paid about $75 for a little less than a half slab. So you may be able to do that too, and then have it cut to sizes you want for the tile, myself, the bigger the better, and the less grout lines. Thanks for your kind words about my kitchen, it is pretty unique, and as we tell folks here, Do what makes you happy, after all, it's your kitchen. For those of you that do like tiles and grout, that's great, as long as it's what you want, and you're not following others or doing what you "Think", might help sell the house later. Gary