Hi, glad you like the script!
Right to your questions:
1) Unfortunately, I can’t understand exactly what space you are talking about without looking at a demo. So if possible, please post some kind of live demo where I could test your code.
2) You could, for example, put the image before the item’s text (not after it) and use a code like this:
<img src="../../../images/tick.png" />
Then if needed, you could add a bit more right padding for the items – you can find the rule in the theme’s CSS file – e.g. .sm-blue a { ...).
Or another option would be to use a right aligned background image with some appropriate item right padding.
Cheers!
