Not a pro here, but if this helps, here's my fruit fly experience; I took up vermiculture (worm composting), following online instructions. The instructions indicated to have them live in newspaper shreddings, I don't know if that worked for anyone else, but for us it began a fruit fly issue that did spread into some of our houseplants. For one thing we hadn't sterilized the worm castings before using them, that was a definite thing that allowed the fruit flies to spread to the plants. Google search some safe ways of sterilizing compost and soil that you think might have parasite eggs in it. But to get the fruit flies out of my worm castings, I changed the system. I brought in a bucket of sand and a bucket of old dried out clay/dirt from outside, and every time I added a bucket of plant waste to the mix, I'd bury it in the surroundings, then put a fine layer of dirt and then a finer layer of sand on top of all of the mix. That made it apparently entirely uninhabitable for the fruit flies. My theory is that to lay and incubate eggs, they need specifically the surface to be moist and rotten, I don't think they do a lot of burrowing, I'm guessing their wings would get damaged. So regardless of how organic the compost underneath is, they couldn't use it as a breeding ground so long as there was a barrier of dry sand and old clay-heavy soil. After figuring that out, I always pot my plants with a drier, older, nutrient parched soil for the top couple of centimeters. Haven't had the fruit fly issue since. Sorry if that wasn't concise! I thought it might help.

Kinetico RO.....Highly recommend the K5W unit....the one with the "water-on-water" storage tank, which I believe is Kinetico exclusive. Much superior to their own or anyone else's air-bladder tanks. Uses line water-pressure for delivery so no drop-off in flow rate from full to empty. Also refills with zero back-pressure so replenishment is much faster and with much less wasted water. I've had two of them at different locations for more than a year. 2.7 gallons capacity. Flows about 1.2 gallons per minute at my 65psi line pressure. Refills from empty in under an hour. Far superior to previous (or current) air-bladder tank. Worth every penny of the extra in terms of convenience IMHO. (Had previous Kinetico RO units for 18 years with zero problems. Responded to their exchange-discount offer.) Kinetico is high-end supplier but they absolutely do hold up their end of the bargain in my experience. They did everything. I did nothing.

We have an Instahot. We had the cheapest kind of insinkerator instahot in our old kitchen and it worked for many many years. We had one in our previous house too and my DH installed one for his parents. In our experience, there haven't been any problems with them. Perhaps there are more problems where the water is very hard. They are pretty simple devices. For the new kitchen we got a nicer looking instahot which also provides filtered cool water. The nicer one has a temperature adjustment which lets it be set just short of boiling. We use it a lot and I wouldn't want to be without it. I use it to: start a pot of boiling water off closer to the boil so I don't have to wait as long - or especially when I need to add a cup or so of water to a pot that is already going so it doesn't cool off and need to heat again. make tea - if I'm really in a fussy mood and want the most perfect brew for black tea, I'll put it in the microwave to get it to a full boil, but really the tea brews fine in it. use it mixed with tap water for washing so that I don't have to wait for the hot water to get to the tap. run fresh herbs under it to release some of the flavor. warming our granddaughter's bottles or frozen baby food when she was at that stage - just put the bottle in a mug and put hot water in. It is very fast and one doesn't have to worry about hot spots like with a microwave. use 1 part hot water to 3 or 4 parts cool filtered water for mixing with the yeast when making bread. Warm water without chlorine - chlorine inhibits the yeast growth. We don't have a soap dispenser at the main sink. I prefer to have soap that I can squirt where I need it and I don't mind having the bottle on the counter. If I did I would buy a prettier bottle. But we have a soap dispenser on our island sink. On the island, a soap bottle would get moved around, sometimes be in the way and sometimes be hard to find. The island one is used mainly for washing hands so I keep hand soap in it and just fetch the one from the main sink on occasions when I need dish soap there.

One more idea. Here is a link to a finished kitchen with a similar layout in case it's hard to picture: http://www.thekitchn.com/maureens-maximized-upgraded-kitchen-small-cool-kitchens-2012-174024 1) This puts the sink is almost exactly where your plumbing already is. 2) There would be a decent amount of natural light in both key parts of the kitchen -- the pass through would let in some where the sink is, and the garden door would light up where the cook top is since that area is pretty close to that door. 3) No stretch of counter is less than 24", your main prep area is over 5 feet wide (and 30" deep), and you have a bonus 9 feet of counter space at the buffet. For me the main failing of a lot of other plans being considered is how the counter space is so chopped up, and this addresses that. 4) I'm envisioning the buffet as an uninterrupted stretch of uppers, lowers, and counter -- like this: The buffet counter is a bit far away from the major kitchen work zones, so I envision its being used more for large cooling racks or setting out a buffet for people eating in the formal dining room to use. You might consider adding a bar sink to the buffet (you have plenty of room) for drinks when entertaining and so the buffet can act as an extra prep area when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Or maybe it could be good a baking station? It's nice to roll out pie crust far away from the heat of the ovens. 5) I widened the doorway to the dining room. It's a vertical piece of the original portion of the house, and it's my understanding from other parts of the thread that that should mean it's not structural? A widened doorway does two things: a) It makes it possible for people to walk by the cooks easily. b) It makes the kitchen more open to the dining room, which means it would be natural to eat informal meals at the dining room table instead of needing a kitchen table. 6) This plan also has a lot of flexibility. a) You can add a bar sink to the buffet to make it a work zone. b) You could add an overhang at the pass through and put bar seating there. c) You can leave the sun room as a sun room and just use the dining table for eating (since now it's a bit more open to the kitchen). d) You can add a free-standing kitchen table in the center of the sunroom -- the kitchen is open enough/near enough to that area that I think a kitchen table there wouldn't seem odd. e) As a compromise between keeping the sun room vs. having a kitchen table, you could put a banquette in the bay window like this: This should leave you some room in between the banquette and the pass through for you to put some of your original sun room furniture (I'm guessing it's just comfy chairs?) and retain some of that sun room function you wanted to keep while still having the banquette as your kitchen table. Here is a link that might be useful: Similar kitchen This post was edited by Jillius on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 5:13