Could you show the top of the plant?

EVen in new construction, this isn't going to be exactly an inexpensive option. You have to plan the whole system for "worst case scenario" rather than the more common everyday usage. A tankless water heater that only supplies one or two of your MB shower features while the tanked heater supplies the others might be the best way to go to give you your once a week indulgence. However, it won't be an inexpensive indulgence. A tankless able to supply enough heat rise to run 2 shower features at once will run you around $1200-$2000. It will need to have it's own separate supply line for the gas it will consume. As Antss said, you're talking 199BTU+. And although a gas tankless unit is smaller than a conventional tank unit and can conceivable be located in a master closet location close to the master bath, there are still some pricy requirements about their venting needs that need to be considered. THe double wall stainless vent pipe isn't cheap, and if you have a long way to go to penetrate the roof, then you may have just incurred another 1K of expense for the project. And there's the additional labor for the install, probably another $500-1K, depending on complexity. If your home doesn't have natural gas available, then electric on demand units are also available, but your home's electrical requirements just doubled, and you have to factor in a much larger service drop from the pole in the beginning as well as a larger service panel installed. Only your utility company and electrician can tell you how much that will add to your expense. The biggest bonus to electrical is that they do not require venting, and thus are easier to place in the home. However, they really do not save you but about 1-3% over a standard tanked electric heater, so it will be difficult to recoup the much higher initial up front costs without being in the home for 30 years. A better choice for someone who has an electrical only home would simply be an additional 80 gallon tank dedicated feeding those 2 extra features that you only turn on on Friday night and then turn off on Saturday after your shower. An 80 gallon tank with a 9 year warranty would run you around $800 here, plus the extra pipe needed to do the runs, you might only be looking at an additional 1K in systems materials to have your shower---PLUS the cost of the controls and the trims and valves for those features. You can figure out the additional operating costs of running your once a week shower from your utility rates and water consumption rates of the features you are considering. Other considerations to having such a shower would be the ventilation needed to ensure that the additional moisture was correctly removed from the home. With a vent fan needing to run for such a long period due to the long shower times, a cold climate bath might need an ERV unit attached to keep from exhausting so much conditioned air to the exterior. ON the whole, you're talking about adding around 5K extra to your project for a once a week indulgence. NOt a lot of money up front, and as I said, you'd need to look at the utility costs to be able to determine operating costs. But once a week shouldn't be onerous unless you live in a water restricted environment where water is expensive or tightly regulated. Unfortunately, more and more of "regular" America are encountering water restrictions. Much of the South was under water restrictions a couple of years ago and Lake Lanier outside Atlanta was almost dry. Check into your municipalites water sources and the possibiltiy of them encountering issues during drought times if you want to really be clear of any ecological impact of your decision. But, the good thing about putting just the "feature sprays" on a separate supply is that you don't have to use them during water restrictions if your area encounters them. Your everyday shower heads are the ones tied to your home's main water heating supply, and those can be "ultra low flow" heads if need be.

Jean, We have recently completed a kitchen with a layout very similar to the first picture you posted. The main difference is that on the wall with the cook top we have a double cabinet on either side of the hood and the double ovens are on the wall to the left (as you face the cooktop) along with the pantry and refrigerator. Our middle island is ten by four and contains the main sink,, dishwasher and microwave drawer. I store the silverware and dishes directly across from the dishwasher in two drawers so it is very convenient. The second island which opens directly to the family room has a smaller sink and the entire island serves as a bar area. We also have only two walls and are really liking the openess to both the family room and breakfast area. Friends have commented on how much larger the whole area looks. As part of our remodel, we added a nook in a former closer in our mudroom for mail, etc which had always accumulated onour kitchen before, but we knew we had to have another place for in our new layout. I think you will really love the two island layout!

Thanks for that, Jasdip! I somehow figured that out right around the time I posted here last nite. I posted it over on my usual RMG forum so the folks over there can reclaim their "real" names too! But I also agree with Brandon about the graphics! And without the “subject” at the top of each reply, it’s difficult, at best, to quickly scroll down a thread and see the “individual” replies—they all just kind of “blend together!” (And in the past I used to sometimes have several threads open at the same time in different windows, and now, without the subject by each reply, the only way for me to figure out which thread I’m looking at is to scroll all the way up to the top of the window to look at the subject.) And ditto on the fact that you can no longer tell which threads you’ve already read! The “subject” used to “change color” after you had clicked on a thread, so you could easily “check in” and see if there had been any NEW posts since the last time you looked! Now you need to either click on the top thread and actually take the time to look at the last reply, or, I guess, you need to try to remember which thread was on top and “how many hours ago” the most recent post was! Say what? There’s no way I’m gonna remember “how many hours ago” the last post was—and, in any event, that CHANGES! It used to give the actual time (EST) when someone posted or replied, and that I could remember. More importantly, it gave the “number of replies” by each post, and that was fairly easy to remember for the most recent post, but since the “subject” changed color, you really didn’t even need to try to remember that—unless you had deleted your cookies! I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s just a lot harder to work with now—and takes a lot longer to try to see what you want to see. That, and a lot of other things, especially the fact that some old, long posts, that had a LOT of good info, are suddenly truncated, and all that good (and it took people a lot of time and effort to post it) info is now just GONE! I have a lot of good friends on GW, and I REALLY want it to go on—forever, but the more difficult and time consuming it becomes to use, I suspect more and more people will slowly disappear. That would be sad! Skybird