I heard from Janet this morning. Unfortunately her friend died yesterday and as you can imagine she is sad and overwhelmed in dealing with this. She said that she will be back posting in a few days. Janet, know that our thoughts are with you. Ann

Hello. I know I'm coming to your kitchen party late, but your kitchen is very close to what I am thinking of installing. Maybe you can answer a few questions? I have almost settled on the Cambria Buckingham, but I am worried it will make the kitchen too dark. I am having cabinets made, the stain will be very similar to the cabinets you installed. My floor is a white/off white porcelain tile (existing). I don't have can lights, only pendants over the islad, sitchen sink and light from west facing windows. I would love to know how you feel about your backsplash a many years later? I am thinking of using a plain subway tile, but worried it is too plain for the gorgeous Cambria. Thanks for any help you can throw my way!

Dear Kim, You are frustrated because to are trying to win at a game but, you don’t know the rules or how to play. If you keep trying the same things you’ll never get different results. If you allow the architecture of your building, your window, and door locations to limit your creativity you’ll continue to produce similar results. Because you become fixated on what’s not working - and blind to other layout possibilities. This is when you’ll need persistence to keep sketching until you finally run out of things that don’t work. Then you’ll discover what does work and a whole new set of possibilities will open up to you. But you must not quit! I can guarantee you haven’t tried every possible combination of appliances and cabinetry that will meet your criteria (what you expect to get from your new kitchen) and perform well for you aesthetically & functionally. So you can get the most value within the space you have available. Our Kitchen Design Ground Rules: The Purpose Every Residential Kitchen is Designed For Is to Provide Food and Beverage Service As Efficiently As Possible….to make your like in your kitchen easier and save you valuable time. All Kitchens Perform These 5 Basic Tasks Storage – Preparation – Cooking/Baking – Providing Service – Clean Up Rules For Kitchen Space Planning If You Want Your Kitchen To Perform Efficiently & Work Intuitively The Appliance dictates the Task & Its Location The Task dictates the Kitchen Items you’ll need to perform that Task The Kitchen Items dictate the best cabinet configuration and accessory to store and retrieve your Kitchen Items most efficiently. Store your Kitchen Items used frequently as close to the Appliance as possible to increase efficiency. Understanding these rules and how to apply them is how you Evaluate how well or poorly your kitchen layouts work once you create them. I like to start with the existing kitchen layout – because kitchen space planning is an evolutionary process – and evaluate it. To discover clearly with proof, Exactly where we’re starting from. What problems this layout has, and what can be done to improve its performance. This initial Evaluation will supply clues to help you resolve the problems your kitchen layout has - leading to other layout possibilities. In my experience Never less than 5 - as many as 12 to 20 different kitchen layouts. Providing you Very Different Results than, “ Here are 2 or 3 similar options pick the one you like best.” As an example of what's possible doing this Kitchen Planning Analysis, these clients of ours got to decide from 21 different kitchen layouts. Resulting in 6 very different kitchen possibilities! And yes you should do the work necessary. If you really want to make the best decisions possible in investing. Both in making this kitchen home improvement last, and making your life in it better for as long as you live here. New Kitchen = New Life...if you do it right. It’s shameful but in most cases you’ll wind up with a kitchen not much different than the one you so desperately wanted to replace...just a new version. I wish this didn't happen to anyone...but this is not the world we live in. Thorough kitchen space planning is how you avoid this from happening to you. Having no conversation with you I have no idea of what you really want to accomplish or what appliances you would love to have in a perfect world. But to get you to keep going I have attached 4 different kitchen layout possibilities 5 layouts in all. Also, You can take pieces and parts of these plans and Frankenstein them together to create still more possible layouts for you to consider. Good Luck! Demand Better Performance Joe Brandao Kitchen Performance Consultant

Got to be better than those nasty bags of pre-filled microwave popcorn! I bought another air popper last year sometime, trying to duplicate Skinny Pop popcorn. I actually did it by coating the kernals with oil before putting them in the popper so the salt would stick to the popcorn. Probably not too safe but I kinda dried the kernals so they weren't dripping with the oil.