Someone in another thread mentioned a product (like a wax or polish) that you put on the stainless steel that keeps it from smudging and showing fingerprints. I believe the poster said it worked very well. Not to mention that some stainless just doesn't smudge up easily. Some stainless also takes magnets, so it's worth testing it all out first. If something is recently discontinued, you can probably find a unit that's already been shipped and is in some store's inventory--or sometimes even the manufacturer's--that you can get a good deal on, besides the feature you like. I can't be sure what your priorities are from your post, but unless you really really want that deli drawer, I'd say that the look and surface are more important. My reasoning is that the lack of drawer or loss of other space will only annoy you when the fridge is open. The wrong color or surface material will annoy you every time you look at the unit. :-)

Hey Kirkhall, glad to see you're still moving forward! But, I thought there was a vent stack just about exactly where the hinges on the door into the NW bedroom are shown. Have you decided to go ahead and move that vent stack or am I just misremembering exactly where it was? Could you show exactly where the vent stack will be on the drawing above? I don't want to spend too much time playing with your sketch only to find out that that danged vent stack is in the way of every idea. But, I do agree that the sketch your GC's designer provided looks awkward. I'm comfortable with angled walls but they do need to look PLANNED! Where two walls meet at 135 degrees (90 + 45) they usually look planned. And, if you have two matching sets of angled walls that meet at 120 degrees (90 + 30) or at 150 degrees (90 + 60) they also usually look planned. But,where (as here) walls meet at some other odd angle, they often look like a mistake was made in the building process and the angled wall was just stuck in willy-nilly to make all the walls connect up. I'm wondering if something like this would work. (Probably depends on where that danged vent stack is!) The hallway to your bedroom would be made about a bit wider and the laundry closet a bit shallower than on your GC's design...but the laundry closet still should be plenty wide for the washer and dryer to sit at the ends as shown on the GC's design. The dotted red line is just to show how I envision the wall beside the NW bedroom would line up with the outer wall of the laundry closet. The only angled walls would be one at the top of the stairs and one in your bedroom and both would meet other walls at 135 degrees instead of some odd angle. If you put a small triangular table or some nick-knack shelves in the corner across from the hallway angled wall, you would create an angled hallway effect that would look planned rather than haphazard. I know one issue you're dealing with with the girls bedroom closets is that you have a kneewall at one side which is making it hard to figure out how to fit in a full sized door. But I think you could do their closets like this using 24" wide regular doors set where you have a full height ceilings. (Yes, I know 24" wide doors aren't exactly "optimal" but where space is tight, they will work FINE as closet doors, particularly for a child's closet!) Both closets would then be shallow walk-in closets (3.5 ft deep x about 6.5 ft wide) with hanging rods to the left and right of the door and a narrow aisle down the middle. Since you wouldn't have to walk very far into the closet, it wouldn't matter that the aisleway was narrow. Obviously, on the side with the low ceiling, you would not have any storage above the hanging rod but I had a similar closet in one of the secondary bedrooms of our old house that was built under a stairway and it was actually pretty functional. With kid's closets, you often want to put set the hanging rod pretty low anyway.

Quote: "Disclaimer: *MY* soon-to-be teen boy will not be stupid. (If I repeat that 100 times will it be so?)" Of course it will (see below for disclaimer). I have four kids, three of them boys, and the baby boy is 22 and a senior at the Univ of Florida. So I speak from experience. Promised Disclaimer: Length of time for avoiding stupid actions may vary slightly with age, but shows a high correlation with the quantity of similarly aged onlookers. Studies show their ability to hold back stupidity will, for average mid-teen boys, last approximately 3/4 of a second. For "good boys who listen to their mother", the time has been seen to rise to almost a full second in some rare cases. Unless a REALLY cute girl is there to witness. In which case, and for every boy studied thus far, the retention time falls to such a short interval scientists aren't able to accurately measure the value.

Hi Julieh- I completely understand your dilema--I have been having trouble finding just the right backsplash for about 8 months now, too! Today I was in Home Depot and was looking at tiles (again-- they keep bringing in new things!)and I saw something that might work for you, since you are looking for a "warm" but not beige marble. They had some very beautiful 2 x 2 " White Grecian" marble (on 12 x 12 sheets)--It was much "warmer" in tone than Carrera. There was lots of beautiful, subtle gold and brown veining in it as well as a little bit of grey. It was very soft, and not very busy. Of course, each shipment of "White Grecian" might be slightly different. At least with the big box stores, however, you can kind of pick through them and get the lot with just the right shading or variation. I'm not sure where you live, as I'm sure that their in-stock selection might vary by region. I am in Maryland. That stone is supplied by MS International, --just in case you have one of their granite and stone wwarehouses near you. You can order it in various sizes and styles at HD's online site. I agree that the carrera and beige botticino is not working with the walls and countertop. By the way--have you noticed that Home Depot is carrying lots of Jeffrey Court (high end supplier) mosaics in stock now? So much for people who say that Home Depot tiles are not good quality! HTH. Here is a link that might be useful: white grecian marble tile