In your zeal to be angry & sarcastic, you've missed my point about the sandwiches. I was trying to say that it's a fun event and people from all around the US look forward to it annually. WFF lives/dies by their reputation. Competition for plant sales is fierce. I make no apologies for supporting WFF. I have 20+ years of experience with this company. I feel confident in my assessment that they will do all that is possible to correct a customer complaint. But, as all of us know who have businesses that deal with the public...some people can't be pleased no matter what you do, or say. That's life. And yes, I believe some people are more inclinced to complain than compliment. For example, when was the last time you took five minutes from your day & phoned management at the restaurant that served you a good meal with good service, & at fair price to give a compliment? If you have a problem plant from WFF, or any other company, by all means call & get it corrected. Yes, WFF's plants are small...so are Bluestone Perennials'. If you want a bit larger plants...try Plant Delights. They are also an excellent company with vast experience...way more than any of us. I was fortunate to attend a horticultural lecture on hostas by Tony Advent a couple years ago. If you have a chance...I highly recommend paying the price of admittance to one of his lectures. I'm trying to say that there are people behind these companies. Those people want you to be a satisfied customer. /t

I switched from Firefox to Chrome, and the reviews link showed up. I ordered mercury glass chandelier shades, can't wait for them to arrive. I have a rather plain brass chandelier, and they should add a bit of shine and contrast without being bling-y.

I was about to say the same thing as gaucho_gordo about unloading the dishwasher into cabinets directly above it. It just doesn't work well. Also, with the type of ample pantry storage you're planning, you definitely don't need uppers. In my kitchen, I have two 30" drawer based cabinets and an 18" floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinet, and all our dishes and food fit in there no problem. I have a bunch of uppers that are all empty. You're going to have twice as much base cabinet storage as we do (they should be all drawers or almost all drawers -- minimize doors on base cabinets) and approximately a million times more pantry storage. Especially in this situation where natural light is needed, you're better off putting in more windows. Here are two other options. In both, I've flipped the bathroom so your dryer can vent out the wall. 1) This one returns your home to a rectangle so you can have the cheaper roof. You lose the corner windows in the kitchen and the ideal fridge-sink-range flow. However, you still have lots of windows, and fridge-range-sink flow isn't going to kill you. I actually prefer that the longest stretch of counter is between the sink and corner (rather than between the range and corner as in my previous drawing). It's not an important preference, but I go back and forth between my prep counter and the sink way more often than I do between the prep counter and range, so the plan below would mean I'd not have to turn the corner so much. Here is a kitchen with lots of windows on one side, similar to what I'm suggesting: You aren't venting the range hood directly out the wall, but it's still a pretty straight, short shot to run the vent to the wall. Not a real problem. If this tweak saves you thousands on the roof, it's a plenty viable option. You could easily add uppers along the range wall, although I wouldn't do any uppers on the sink wall -- make it all windows. This one re-groups your plumbing, but I don't think it's worth it. I like this plan way less. You lose the ability to recess the fridge, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but ugh. I was so happy for you that you could have that! It's by far the best fridge solution. Normal, non-recessed fridges visually and spatially dominate small spaces in the most, bulky, inelegant way. I am very spatially-oriented (obviously) and notice and appreciate when space is used well, and standard-depth fridges fit so badly where they are supposed to go that it offends me on a very personal level. The person who decided that that should be standard must have been drunk. Counter depth fridges are a better option than normal, non-recessed fridges. But counter depth fridges are also more expensive and are never really truly counter depth. They often don't count the depth of the door (3-4"), and they usually also tell you to leave 4-5" of air circulation space behind them or your expensive fridge is going to die faster. So your "counter depth" fridge sticks out, like 7" from your counter unless you ignore recommendations and shove it all the back against the wall as most people do. But even then it's not even with the counters. (We actually built a recess for our counter-depth fridge to fix this -- couldn't recess more than 6", which is perfect for counter depth, but not enough for a normal fridge.) Built-in fridges are truly counter depth, but they cost a million dollars. OR, you can get a normal fridge and recess it, and then the sun shines and angels sing, and everything is better. (This is the point where my dad tells me that he's worried I haven't given this enough thought.) So in the plan above, you'd need a counter depth fridge. The island doesn't really face the TV as well as it did before, but you're still looking at the living room and windows instead of a wall, so it's still an improvement on the original in that sense. The front closet is not well-positioned to also be a pantry (too far from the kitchen). This seems like a deal-breaker downside. You've gone from an enormous pantry to no pantry. And some of the lines are off. The TV wall used to line up with the right wall of the dining room. Now with the kitchen on that wall, even though the wall is in the same place, it is visually bumped forward with the kitchen cabinets and no longer really lines up with the TV wall. The pantry/front closet used to line up with the fridge/kitchen cabinets. Now the front closet is just sort of just sitting there by itself, sticking out into the room.

That's a good point Unique Wood Floors. I will write them an email to follow up and send them the photos I have. We had the owner out yesterday and he agreed that, while some imperfections are to be expected, this is beyond what he would consider acceptable. He said that the waves are caused by the hand-sander (which was the newbie guy). It breaks my heart because I know every craftsman has to start somewhere...I just don't want it to be on my $4000 job! He was very polite and told us to go ahead and move back into the house; that his crew will move everything out and back in when they come to redo. I did not think to ask if he would send the same or a different crew. I will have to come back in two weeks and post pictures of the redo. Thanks again guys!