clinresga: Thanks for all the info and good things to think about. I am glad to hear that you like the Fantech silencer. Our attic should easily be able to accomodate its size. Do you know if they reduce the effective CFM of the blower? (I hope to get off another project today and start calling various companies to figure out what we need). We will be using a custom surround - truly custom in the sense that our contractor/finisher will make it for us in any fashion we want. We haven't yet settled on a specific design, but it will be made of wood, painted the wall color and we'll probably try to make it "disappear" as much as possible. Ha! Given the nature of this project (restoring a 1920's remote fishing resort - off the grid and way in the middle of nowhere), we are working with a contractor who does beautiful work and can pretty much make anything out of any material. (You should see the cabinets he's made that look like they've always been there, the rock fireplace surround he built that is a deadringer for the 1924 one that came off in the 1970s, etc. He is a true artisan.) So for the range hood, we are constrained by the location of the refrigerator on the one side, and the size/depth of the range. I believe we will have a maximum of 43-44" for the surround (the stove is 40" wide and sits about 32" off the wall). It sounds like MA might be my first call if they can make a custom liner that is the right width and extra deep. We did hear back from the stove restorer, and the burners have a total of 72K BTUs (12K each) and the ovens have a total of 40K BTUs (20K each). I still think the FDK10 will work for us if we get to that level of pinching pennies, but we'll have to run the numbers to see! In another post, I saw you mention that you have a wall control for the blower and lights. Did that come with the MA? Or is it manufactured by another company? Are the blower and light controls on the same unit?

Wow~ !! I love that second option, which really sinks the TV behind the sliding doors. If the bedroom is the room you wish for your TV, that is fantastic. It works with drawers and shelves, but would not work with hanging garments. I also like the top one, but that is not so unique. I've seen similar setups on HGTV, where they have access to all the electronic equipment from behind. If you are really into electronics and movies and have lots of STUFF to go with the TV, that will be a convenient plan. In our case, we have a 42 inch flat panel presently mounted above our fireplace. I'm planning to put in book shelving all along that wall, and maybe bring forward the fireplace surround a few inches to make it appear part of the whole thing. I will get a modern gas fire box with glass front and the crystal clear stuff (whatever it is called) instead of lava rocks and get rid of the smelly old style gas logs. I hate the smell of gas in the house. BUT, The entire wall being shelving, the TV above with maybe shutters to bifold and cover that black hole when it is off, it sounds very cottagey to me. Do not worry about making it FLAT, because a cottage look allows for surfaces to be broken and lots of molding will add to the character. Be sure to keep trim all the same color for a "birthday cake icing" look, unless you want it to be very modern like the second picture. How about showing the room that you already completed? Then we'd have a better idea of your style. Very interesting project, and so pleased to make your acquaintance. :)

Wow!!! adamcatum's post has finally appeared where it should have been. I must have jumped into a parallel Schrödinger quantum state Houzz; I'll blame tripping on the imaginary time axis. To answer his question, perhaps, I had a planned peninsula configuration with both a 36-inch induction cooktop and a Cooktek induction wok. With appropriate spacing between cooking units, and in concert with useful cabinet dimensions, this called for a relatively long and wide island-type hood. Further, the hood had to be aesthetically tolerable, given its massiveness and visual intrusion between two rooms now opened up into one. Last, due to the amount of time I could allocate to a "kitchen" renovation that had tentacles into many other parts of the house, plus doing all of the electrical work while also employed, I couldn't get involved in a design effort with a custom hood design shop. Wolf's largest Pro Island hood fit the bill and had a chimney extension that allowed a height above the cooktop counter of 34.5 inches in the finished room, just enough to clear me. There was an appropriate (Wolf by Broan) roof blower available with a fan curve that suggested adequate flow rate (and resulting hood intake aperture velocity) at the expected pressure losses and MUA conditions I would eventually have. The hood works well. Capture and containment of searing steak plumes or wok effluent is nearly total. This morning there was a delay getting the blower to move air due perhaps to household humidity (I keep it at 40% in the winter) condensing and freezing up something in the duct path, or due to some roof snow melting and refreezing near the external damper. There is still a lot of roof snow here in NH, although the blower areas look clear from the ground. Anyway, after a couple of minutes the issue resolved itself and full flow was achieved. There are at least several other manufacturers of hoods that one can find, such as ModernAire, Handcrafted Metal, Inc., Abbaka, Prestige, maybe CaptiveAire, Greenheck; searching on the Internet can be useful for seeing the vast scope of possibilities. As I didn't need a separate roof cap because it was part of the Wolf blower assembly, I never expended any time looking into roof cap sources so I can't help there. The Wolf blower electrically interfaces with the Wolf hood, so I didn't have to get involved with interface issues. If I were doing it over and didn't have anything else to do with my time, I would consider adapting a commercial pedestal-mounted up-blast roof blower, nominally oversized for the application but running a belt sheaf ratio that lowered the blade speed to achieve (only!) 1500 CFM in free air. This would be even quieter (I think), but certainly a more obvious blower than the usual Wolf, Broan, and Abbaka roof-hugging devices. In your case, you could fight the snow by using a pedestal mount high enough for the snow depth, upon which a down-blast blower assembly (sans fan and motor) was mounted. (These vaguely resemble mushrooms.) You would need an internal damper to supplement that of the hood. Other chimney type schemes come to mind, but I think searching would be best for you to cover the bases. kas

Yes, I love diy art. Get a piece of mdf cut to size. Then paint the mdf a solid background color. After that has dried, get a kid between 3-4 years . Give him/her 3 colors of paint and 10 minutes with instructions to paint a picture of the family. Use wall paint, samples are fine. You will end up with an amazing piece of abstract art. Try with older kids and the results will not be as nice. Older than 4yo and they are too good at drawing actual shapes. Young children are great abstract artist.