re: Designing a Kitchen (well sort of) - need some ideas

a second garbage can in the island has been priceless. One by the sink is needed, but the second one in the island is pretty convenient. I love my pot filler, use it for other things as well (dog's water bottle, kids water jugs for sports etc)

One of my favorites that I have is lights under and above my cabinets. It looks so good at night when they are the only lights on.

Make sure you dont have more than 2 receptacles on one 1 circuit when your electrician wires it. This is especially true if your going to be pluging crockpots into them. Also microwave on its own circuit. We have lights on top of our cabinets to on a timer and its a real nice touch. I had to run power to them if I would have thought about it then I would have had the electrician put an outlet on top of each set of cabinets. Do undercabinet lighting too, thats my next project.

I should have added to think about what you care about most if you're budgeting.

There are items that mean more to one person than they do to another. Some want granite countertops. Some don't. Some want a trash compactor. Some don't. I wish I'd put one in, myself.

Keep a pad and pen handy as you move around your kitchen now and jot down notes. I did that and when the time came to make decisions, I had a much easier time. Look at kitchens in houses for sale online that advertise "updated" kitchens. That also gives you some ideas on what works in various layouts.

I have a double stainless sink. Both sides are deep and large with a sprayer. I hate the one sink and small one with the disposal.

I use a lot of very large pots and I can wash them all in the sink. Also, with the faucets, the environmental water conservation business takes the damn pressure out of those faucets. I got a new one that isn't nearly as forceful as the old one. Someone with technical knowledge of this stuff can explain better than I can, but some of them come with whatever the government requires, but it's removable. Some cannot be removed. You're not supposed to remove whatever part it is. I sadly ended up with a part that can't be removed. I may buy another. I'm not going to make that mistake when I buy the shower head for the shower I'm putting in. I hate a shower with not enough pressure. Last time, I went on ebay and bought some good heads to replace on my old showers with none of that save our water business. I'm not much of an environmentalist when it comes to cleaning my pots or myself.

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I'm thinking a big deep sing will be necessary as I like to cook a big gumbo from time to time

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That's exactly the sort of thing to put on your list. Your type of cooking or cooking you'd like to start doing is what to list.

I love my double sinks. I don't think I could function with only one sink no matter how wide or deep the way I do things. I might need to wash something while I have something else in a colander draining, for example and that happens a lot. Just one of those things I thought about.

ETA: Same with hard boiled eggs. I might need be washing in one sink and need to dump the eggs in a big bowl of ice water in the other to cool. Or, I might be cooling a bit pot of something in an ice bath in one sink to put in the fridge, while cleaning the kitchen and rinsing and washing. I have to have two big sinks.

Thanks. I'm going to ask my contractor to look at it again. He said he'd get another one for me since he picked out the one I have based on my description of what I wanted. I was thinking there surely had to be a way to get around it. It's not awful. It's just not as strong as the old one, which was still working well. I just wanted another style that would not be troublesome when washing the large pots. Damn annoying, though.

I have a 70/30 split sink that I really like...I keep the big part as the "dirty" sink and the smaller part as the "clean sink"...but I also have a giant sink in the laundry room 8 feet away. It's a plasterer's scrub sink with a big commercial, wall mounted spigot. Big enough to scrub a pot, small dog, or 11x17 silkscreen frame. Very handy to have them so close together.

You are a nice lady.

I'll spit in the ocean to make up for the portion of the world's water you waste each year.