kitokeefe, Yes, all Varde cabinets have adjustable legs, at least, according to their website that says: "- Adjustable legs; stands steady on uneven surfaces." David, I had never heard of OSB and it would have never occurred to me to search for it, thanks for the info! However, nowhere on the IKEA site it says that they use OSB. They do say it is either Particleboard or Fiberboard. I am not sure what the difference is. According to Wikipedia, "particle board usually refers to low-density fiberboard". Angie, Yes, you are right, it is not plywood but ACTUAL wood, which is even better: "Main parts: Solid birch, Clear amino resin lacquer" You could tell just by looking at the pix that it is not a particle board. Rosie, Yes, I live in - hot and humid - Sough-East. And yes, I am going to use IKEA planner or another software to draw the kitchen plan - after I finish my taxes (I won't be seen much on GW till Tuesday, LOL). BTW, for anyone interested, I have found a picture of a very contemporary free-standing kitchen in a 1880 house with elaborate wood work all around. So, I guess the answer is that it CAN be done! Here is a link that might be useful: The Freestanding Kitchen

Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I'm sorry I didn't get to read them earlier...spent the afternoon building a snowman with my little guy in this lovely winter wonderland we are experiencing in NC right now, followed by hot cocoa with 'Mickey' marshmallows (because "Mommy, boys don't drink hot chocolate with 'Minnie' marshmallows!"), followed by a sugar cookie making party! So down to business... -As many of you have pointed out, this design has some issues. The background on this is that we hired a designer to draw the house plans. After nearly a year (when it should've taken about 3 months seeing as how I drew the floorplans for her and actual pics were provided for the entire exterior from every angle imaginable) we had spent a small fortune and we figured out we were being strung along to increase the designer's bottom line. So we finally said this is it, print the final set and we will take it from here. So here we are with pretty much the whole house nailed down except for the kitchen and construction scheduled to start in about 3-4 weeks. The solution: call on your Gardenweb friends to help make this kitchen an open yet cozy example of both form and function. And I thank you again for all your help! -To answer a couple posts, a counter and cabinet are needed next to the refrigerator for storage of glassware and a place to set the glasses as they're being filled from the dispensers. Celticmoon- I hate those corner cabinets too! They are stumpy and they do impede walkways around the island. Rhome- Yes, there will be a fridge/freezer in the garage just outside the entry door in addition to the 48" fridge/freezer in the kitchen. With a 15 year old the size of a linebacker and a 5 year old with 2 hollow legs who can out eat his older brother, I might need a third! On the pantry-you walk in under the upper portion of the stairs and there will be a set of tall shelves that will line the left hand wall for dry goods. These will go to 2 shelves under the landing and around the corner for large pots and bulk items (yes, I love Costco!). This setup has worked really well for Mom & Dad and my DH & I really like it. Lisa_a- I don't like the oven placement either, but I had to put them somewhere just to get the final prints done. I like the idea of placing them on the DR or FR wall. Thanks! Mythreesons- You are in the Charlotte area, right? I think we exchanged window info a while back. What did you ever decide to go with? Did you ever get to talk with the owner of the Abberley Lane house in your neighborhood? Thanks for the input and posting of your plan. I really like your island setup-it's just what I had in mind! As far as the mudroom/laundry/powder room area: the cubbies will be hidden inside a cabinet. My DH & I went round & round on that part of the layout (in fact the powder room was an addition to the original plan)& what you see is the compromise we could both live with-hence the disguised cubbies. Our bigger issue is laundry. Our mudroom and laundry room were combined in our last house & it was an absolute nightmare! And of course the entry door that was used the most by EVERYONE was the one in the mudroom. All of my work stuff ended up there too. I've made a large specially designed space for all of my work stuff in the garage so it never enters the house. So hopefully, we will just be dealing with coats, gloves, hats, bookbags & shoes--all behind closed doors! Please keep the suggestions coming! I will work with these & get them on paper to scan & post. If anyone sketches anything out as you're thinking or if you see a layout you think will help, please scan and post it! Thanks so very much!

I'm in the early stages of a full gut job, so I only have a few things to say. My GC is really good about telling me what he needs and when, but I did run into a little time crunch with the flooring because it needs to sit for at least a week to acclimate and I couldn't make up my mind. He is great about answering my questions and helping me decide things if I'm confused - like we just went over light switches and there was a discussion on whether the under cabinet lighting should be on one switch or two. I would say the GC should definitely help with how much floor to order. I didn't have a KD, so I'm doing that. For me that's the biggest stressor - making all the decisions and stressing about them. So from that perspective, I would say get your stuff picked out and/or ordered early so you don't add to your stress about choosing and getting it on time. Also, that way you won't find that a light you like takes 2 months to be delivered. It's funny because I read here about other people saying something similar and I thought - eh, I won't pick something that will take that long to deliver, I'm not that fussy, I don't have that big of a budget, etc. And then I found that there is no rhyme or reason to how long things take to get. I picked a $50 light that had a fairly common look, but it was a little cheaper than the others, and the delivery estimate was 2 months, so I had to get one of the $70 ones that looked similar. Not a huge deal, but just an example. I don't know how much we are over budget right now. Originally I was hoping for a $30k remodel, but I had to expand that to $50k, and I think we may go over that by a little. Things like extra outlets and switches are going to add up. He did a great job putting up plastic to keep the dust out. Unfortunately it made it so we pretty much could only use half of our house - kitchen, dining room and downstairs bathroom is behind the plastic. The main problem we have there is that we have a dog and his dog door was in the kitchen, but we are dealing. We have baby gate up on the one side and we just have to walk him more. Our dining room is the 'staging area' where we have our new fridge (which we are using), and all the other stuff that I have bought and they haven't put in yet - other appliances, sink, faucet, flooring, etc. We have a little temporary kitchen set up in the office. I have a pretty small house, so it is tight, and it wasn't possible to put the fridge in there with everything else. We are using a toaster oven, crock pot, microwave and sous vide. We are only finishing up week 2, but so far it hasn't been too bad. I make one big meal in the crock pot - stew, casserole type one pot meal - and eat that every day for lunch and two dinners. Then we make something else one night - last week it was london broil in the sous vide, this week it's meatloaf in the toaster oven. Then we go to family every Friday anyway. We go out once or twice and so far have gone to friends or family another day. Ok I guess I had a lot to say after all.. Here are some pictures just for fun. because I'm dying to share with someone but didn't have a good reason to start a thread about it. Before: kitchen - yes it's horrible, just horrible. I see some of these before pictures and I think, man wait until you see mine! We painted the cabinets red when we moved in because they were a really dark stained wood and the stain wasn't even in the best condition. I thought the red would be fun and funky since we were planning to renovate anyway.... then it waited 10 years. I was going for a french bistro kinda look. dining room looking into kitchen now: kitchen - they found that the electric was so bad they decided to take down all the plaster, then they found that there were no studs or insulation, so they are adding that. (one of the things that is going to push us over the revised budget) As of this afternoon or tomorrow there will be no back wall there because we are taking out that window and door and putting in french doors. - that's one of the things that made the original budget get revised. in the dining room looking into the kitchen - taking that load bearing wall with all it's duct work and electric is another thing that made the original estimate go up. (the board in the middle hanging down there is literally just holding the light switch.) Oh also, I think the work phase of ours is going to be about 6 weeks. I've been planning for 3 months. My GC is on site almost every day. I let the guys use our downstairs half bath. We have just pretty much not been using it. The floor is dirty, but other than that they seem to be being pretty good about respecting our stuff, but it's really only my GC and one other guy, and my GC is I would say pretty invested in making me happy. I swear he must get half of his business from my mother-in-law. He's always like, 'oh I saw your mother-in-law last week when I was working on so and so's house' and my husband's uncle called us to ask the GC to give his spare key back. So our relationship is different than just any GC. He also worked the rough supplies into the estimate. I was responsible for picking out appliances, counters, cabinets, tile, etc. In the end he got the cabinets for me because he got a better price wholesale, so he WOULD do that stuff, but I like to comparison shop.

Knickema, I've been in your shoes as a homeowner pulling the permit. In my small jurisdiction, the lead inspector told me we needed to do a homeowner/GC permit. I spoke to him before we started planning, and he said that the only way to get the licensed/permitted pros to pull the permit was to have them act as GC for the entire remodel (he recommended against this). So we got the permit. That said, listen to the advice above and find a plumber who is familiar with current codes for island vents.