First time poster here. We remodeled our kitchen last year after living in the house for 28 years. When we moved in , the house was only two years old. The cabinets were basic 80�s white laminate and the peninsula countertop was butcher block. The butcher block next to the sink was a bad idea. Over the years, the wood darkened and rotted no matter how careful we were.

When we moved in, the peninsula was a few feet longer. We cut it back to allow a kitchen table which my in-laws insisted that we needed even though a much more spacious dining room table sat a few feet away. For twenty years, as our son was growing up, whenever the in-laws visited, we crowded around the kitchen table for all meals - "you just don�t use the dining room table except for special occasions." To make matters worse, my father in law was one of those people that sits on the front edge of his chair with most of the chair behind him and totally blocks the aisle.

The in-laws visits dwindled over the years and last year we decided to do a limited re-model - just replace the worn out cabinets and countertops, and restore the peninsula to (almost) its original length. We had done some successful flooring projects with Home Depot and decided to go with them. We wanted to stay with the same footprint since we were pretty happy how the kitchen worked, it was just worn out and the kitchen table made 0 sense.

At the first on-hour session with the HD designer, we picked out the cabinets (Woodmark Charlottesville), countertops (titanium granite) and associated hardware. I started following the Kitchen forum after the project was done, and now it is scary to me how many fast decisions we made in that first one-hour session.

At the second one-hour design session, we reviewed and made modifications to the designer�s layout. We re-used the refrigerator, the Jenn-aire cooktop, and faucet. We got the pendant lamps and LED under cabinet lighting from Home Depot. Everything is pretty much in the same place it was before. We had to get some electrical done to increase the number of GFI outlets and to replace the oven line with a four wire line which is the new electrical code.

Everything went smoothly with the install, one of the reasons why we wanted to stay with the same footprint. What is really odd is that whenever I go over to where the kitchen table used to be, I feel strangely off balance, like I shouldn�t be standing there. Amazing what 28 years will do.