I think the plan holligator did has some good options. If you did like somebody suggested and put openings on each side of the stove you'd also have a view into the family room when cooking. This plan keeps traffic out of the cooking zone and all your prep and cooking happens within view of the family room. In your first plan you are stuck on the other end of the island for doing any prep and cooking with the fridge and stove where you have them so not sure how much supervising you can actually do, in that area. One other option to keep prepping and fridge out of the garage walkway would be to put the stove in the corner. As wide as it is you probably would have to move the island down a bit to have aisle space. Then move the sink down closer to the opening, and keep the fridge on its current wall, but move it away from the sidewall. Ues you loose the sink right under the window, but I think you'd love that spot for prepping/cooking and looking out the window, and at least in my kitchen I spend more time prepping and cooking than I do at the sink. I'm not seeing why the Fridge has to be on that wall as it currently is on the other wall. Seems to me it should be able to go to both.

I also agree about elevating the older dog to a dominant position in the house. When our dog died, and we brought in a new companion for Ricky, we intentionally always went to Ricky first, and said so. Ricky, let's go outside. Our pup learned to "wait for Ricky" as he would walk proudly out the door first. When we fed them, we would say Ricky eats first. Actually we only set down his bowl first, then fed the pup. Even now a year later, we always let Ricky go first and make a big deal of it. Blaze knows nothing else. Ricky leaves and enters the house first. He eats first and gets in and out of the van first. We brush him first and pet him first. Even if Blaze runs up to us to the gate first, we often will stop petting him and pet Ricky when he arrives. All of our dogs are lap dogs. We just sit on the floor. In time when the older one feels more comfortable, the little dog may be a more exclusive lap dog, but for now, I would sit on the floor, and pet the older one first. We keep our dogs in the most popular area of our house, so we go to them. They are rarely alone, but we do not allow them into our living room or bedrooms. Those are off limits, so we don't have dogs with us 24 hours, and we sleep without dog dander since we are very allergic. Therefore we can easily declare that Ricky is first in whatever we do. I don't think you will have a problem after a couple of weeks. If you do, you might consider discussing this with the Vet to see if there is a mild medication you can give your older dog for anxiety. One more thing - when we were walking our dogs, Ricky used to always poop. We would scoop it up, and walk with it. Once my husband hurt his back and had to stop walking with us for a couple of weeks, I quickly got tired of this process. Before our walks I would take the dogs out as usual, and I began telling Ricky to do his business. He would walk inside, and I would call him out. I kept telling him to do his business, and he began doing it. Now he understand that he must do it before we walk. We haven't needed the bags for about 6 weeks. It may be that your dog is performing for you in a more dramatic fashion than the pup can do. You might keep the dog outside with you (and not the young dog), and insist that he poops before he comes in. Even give him a treat if he performs for you. We all know that a dog's brain is wired completely different from ours. Sammy

We bought our house from two elderly sisters who were both in nursing homes. They had held off on selling because they had hoped to move back home. They finally realized they had to sell it. Thus, it had been empty for almost 18 months when we first saw it. There were cobwebs hanging off the ceiling, and a few abandoned items here and there. They had owned dogs, and the carpeting smelled of you-know-what. Plus their remodeling taste was decidedly iffy -- when I first walked through the house I told our partner, "This is hands-down THE ugliest house I've ever seen!" But we bought it anyway, and ended up loving it after we gutted the interior and did a complete top-to-bottom remodel. However, since generations of spiders had lived and died in the 2 years before we moved in, it's still clear that they consider this THEIR house, not ours. I still have to fight to keep them at bay, LOL. I keep reminding myself, "They're the good insects...."

I don't know about the back CS. I was irate with DH when BM dumped the boy off to begin with and DH didn't press the issue way back then. I'm hoping that DH's atty will do the best she can to at least get DH the past three years in exchange for the next three with BM. To me, that would be fair. As far as SS goes, he's only 12 but emotionally more like an 8-year-old. He is very childish but his parents and grandparents have allowed him to call the shots from the beginning which is part of the problem we've been having since we married. Unfortunately, DH denies it so he's just as much to blame. My parents never allowed my brother or I to dictate what adults did and I don't allow my DD to do it, so this is completely foreign to me. I don't understand how adults let a child who can barely wipe his own butt or who forgets to eat during the day to make such life altering decisions. I want to say "I told you so" to DH but know it's only going to fuel the fire. SS has flat out told DH he doesn't want to do anything here and DH has begrudgingly forced the boy to chip in doing chores while BM doesn't make him do a bloody thing. I know BM doesn't want him but at this point, this is all part of the game that she, SS, and DH play with each other in addition to wanting the CS. SS goes where he's promised the most material goods and the least structure, which she makes good on both promises. After all, she did say that divorcing and CS was easier than working. Unfortunately, I think this is a lost cause since DH refuses to accept responsibility for the situation.