I went out to Walmart yesterday and bought some clear (not cushy) non-adhesive Contact paper, unrolled 1 roll and put it (18" wide) in my drawer near the stove where I keep pot holders, trivets, removable handles for my pans. I'm going to see how it works (that cabinet back was broken by installer so stuff wiggles when I close the drawer - not softclose) and maybe put it in all my drawers. That drawer was getting a little worn after only 18 months with stuff in it. My deep drawer in island has a scratch through the paper maple-grain laminate on top of the plywood. Other top drawer near stove has a chip in the laminate (not melamine). These are Merillat's "Deluxe" drawers - not sure if you can get lacquered solid maple bottoms along with the plywood sides if you go with their "Masterpiece" line, but I know the two solid maple dovetailed drawers I ordered online have a much better finish on them than the doors and drawer fronts on my Merillat cabinets! I don't want those drawer bottoms to get scratched either, but at least I know if they do I can refinish them. I've got dish towels in them now. If the clear Contact paper (says it's safe for all finishes, unlike the cushy ones made by Duck I saw in Walmart and BB&B) doesn't work out I'll try the cork. Nothing should be put away wet (unless a recess where the handle attaches on my pots is holding water, but I put those in the dish drainer after taking them out of the DW so they can dry thoroughly), and I'm getting plastic silverware organizers for my cake spatulas, kids' pencils, markers, etc. b4 I put them in new drawers so just need them to keep things from shifting or scratching - esp. things like our collection of chargers that is currently sitting in a ziploc bag near the MW.

We like the U, but my better half liked the sink where the range is better. In the past, the window in our kitchen went to about 10" off the floor, and of course there was no counter there. The fridge was in the same place with a horrible angled pantry cabinet beside it. Then another angled cabinet/DW/sink/corner cabinet wrapping around where the range is now to the old range, which is now where the sink is. We swapped the range and sink to a) make it easier to vent (exterior wall) and b) make it look better. We had also been toying with blowing the entire wall out where the sink is and having a peninsula there. We left the wall and just did a pass through above the sink, like a window. So we always had a decent triangle, but the additional 3 feet of counter and base cabinet is a HUGE improvement. We also went from having 3 drawers in the entire kitchen to almost entirely drawers. Only spot there isn't drawers is the blind corner (LeMans) and under the sink. The counter under the window is now the most used spot in the kitchen.

Thanks, cpartist and lisadlu16, for your guidance. I have started a new discussion that I think includes your suggested items. If you have a moment, I’d love your input. Thanks for taking the time to tell me how to help people help me :)

Sooo, DH and I were talking about this last night and he's basically willing to put the microwave anywhere but he WON'T add or move any of the electric, which sort of actually rules out moving it anywhere, unless I go with just a little countertop model. I think I'm just giving up and trying to figure out how to make an OTR MW work. I came up with two ideas. Both of these do require DH to resize the window trim, which he says he's willing to do. He said he doesn't like that is thicker the window trim in the rest of the house anyway. Idea 1: Is to do an open cabinet above the MW that is white on the inside, and just put some white pottery up there, basically just keep the area next to the window as light as possible. Could potentially even tile the inside of the cabinet. I couldn't make it open to the backsplash tile because the outlet to plug the microwave would be there so it would have to be hidden behind a forward cabinet back. Here's an attempted illustration, excuse the sloppiness. Question: Would it look odd do you think if that open cabinet was just all white and everything else around it cherry? Not sure what I'll do for a MW color-wise yet. The appliances are slate but if I have to do this I might be a lot more motivated to save for a slide-in stainless range/MW. Too bad I think most white MWs are just ugly (the exceptions our out of my price range) of course MW in general are not the most attractive appliance. Idea 2: My first idea was to make the cabinet above the MW with glass doors to lighten the area, but it looked out of place by itself. I was looking at it this morning and realized you could put glass doors on the cabinets over the fridge and you'd be creating a nice symmetry. The drawing had been photo copied before I erased the glass cabinet and tried drawing the shelf so the cabinet over the fridge couldn't be erased and redrawn but I think you can get the idea here. Question: The cabinet over the fridge will be deep, so even though this looks nice and symmetrical on a 2D drawing do you think it would translate to 3D? The deepest we'd make the cabinet over the MW is 15". Curious about your opinions! I'm not even sure DH could build a cabinet door for putting in glass. He'll be home tonight so I'll ask then. He'll give me the look for making his life more complicated but every time he's insisted that we do one thing a certain way the rest of my kitchen gets a lot more customized! lol, Pound of flesh and all that. I was ready to just buy cabinets a year and a half ago and he insisted that he was going to build this kitchen himself. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with something much nicer than I could have gotten out of the box, but it's being paid for in time and hassle and if I don't get the convenience of just buying a kitchen I want it to be as nice as possible!