Nice pictures. Thanks.

You may be in luck, depending how your laminate is installed. Many of them are tongue in grove floating over a padding layer and only secured around the perimeter, sometimes with little beads of adhesive along the tongue/groove that would fairly easily be disrupted. If this is the case, you can re-arrange your laminate planks to fill/shift the island hole, using extra from where you don't want it under the new cabinets! Best bet is to call in an opinion of a flooring installer. A skilled professional or DIYer can do this so it's indistinguishable from a virgin layout, with NO sign that the island has been shifted, in the flooring pattern! This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, Mar 26, 14 at 9:28

Papa's little darling is a black/tan dachshund girl named Dixie. She is a huntress. After we added the "back forty" to our fenced space, she was enjoying exploring that new and shady locale. However, a week or so ago she disappeared one dark night and did not come when I called her to come in. It is my habit to let the two dogs out for a final business trip before we go to bed, and is usually over in a few minutes. But Dixie does not exactly pay attention to coming back when she gets her nose full of a scent like RABBIT, and we now have a rabbit coming into the garden to eat tasty stuff, and Dixie can track it everywhere it's been. So it was about 11 pm, and I was ready to go to bed. My flashlight batteries were DEAD, so I could not see how to walk in the stubbly field of cut bushes to look for her. Calling her name endlessly that late at night and clapping hands would not be appreciated by neighbors. I looked and looked, and listened for any sounds of her, all to no avail. Nothing. I went out front to the street to see if this little black dog could be out there, again no sign of her. I was sick at heart, because she is not wise to the ways of cars, and will follow her nose without looking up. I could not think about what I'd tell her papa in the morning when he called. So I turned on the front porch light, opened the blinds so I could see if she came up on the stoop, and waited. And waited some more. Around 2 am, there was a little scratch on the front door, and I looked that way to see her panting tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. She was ready to come home. She had scratches, a rash on her low slung belly, and by the next morning there were many bruises like finger prints around her back legs under the belly. I took her to the vet for babysitting (I was heading to Iowa next night), and they gave me something for the rash. Well, the same thing happened again Tuesday this week, only it was daylight, and I was watching the dogs while I watered my flowerpots. Suddenly no Dixie in the yard. I went calling again, no answer. I went to my neighbor's yard to see if she had gotten under our fence into HIS yard, but no. I was pretty mad at her this time. So I came back to our side of the shrubbery, and there she was, by the car in the driveway. Now I am putting her harness on with the leash attached to a large but movable object (a wire basket) so that she is slowed down, and cannot get far if she tries to go under the fence. This will be the routine until I can add a barrier around the new fence area, like we have under the old fence area, which will keep her from escaping. She is a quick learner. Poor little rabbit, I hope Dixie makes friends with it, and it grows up quickly to be bigger than she is. Anyway, here is a picture of her with her "ball and chain." I hope the animal cruelty folks don't catch me.

I love that you're planning for big dinners! Fun! I'm renting a tent and tables and chairs for a graduation party and in trying to figure out how many tables I could fit in the tent, I Googled 'spacing for tables and chairs.' You'll get several hits. From this link you'll see: For a special occasion such as a holiday meal with many guests, the meal may be served buffet style, calling for a slightly different furniture arrangement in the dining area Allow 60 inches between the buffet or food serving area and the edge of the dining table; this allows room to walk between the table and serving area, even when guests' chairs are pushed away from the table. You'll also need to consider the size of your chairs. For example, arm chairs may take up more space than the same-styled chairs without arms. And will the placement of the buffet be in a corner or 'dead end', meaning two people may need to pass each other behind a seated diner to access the buffet? Or can the buffet line be one way, allowing 'in' at one end and 'out' at the other? I'd try it out... set up your buffet (or a large box to imitate it) 60" away from the back of a chair with someone in it seated at your table. Is it comfortable to pass by? Do you feel like you'll spill soup on someone's head as you inch by, or that your bum is brushing the back of their head? Or can two of you pass each other comfortably behind the person seated in the chair? Once you feel comfortable, then use some graph paper and draw, to scale, your table, chairs, buffet etc. with the comfortable walkway.