Ah! That's what was bothering me about the center cabinet. I agree, I think open shelves will open that area up. I'm not an "open shelf" person, but if you are and you will have them, don't make them "heavy" (that's what the cabinet boxes are doing to them right now). Is this a temporary remodel or the only remodel you plan for many years to come? If temporary for only a couple of years, I would probably skip some of the items in your list and put the money you save toward the full-scale remodel in the future. Only do what you think will (1) make your kitchen function much better and (2) be part of the full-scale remodel (like the sink & faucet...as long as you keep them then!) I would probably just paint the backsplash, not put the time and $$ into it now. If, however, this is the only remodel you plan, then I would do whatever you can w/the $$ you have now...but just what you really want. If there are some things you want but cannot afford right now, wait until you've saved more to do what you really want. Since it's DIY, you can do it piecemeal as you save up $$. As to the cabinets, I could go either way...I do prefer wood (natural or stained), but you have a lot of wood already so painting would probably be OK.

One nice alternative if you want but can't have an instant hot is an electric kettle---we got one a few months before our remodel, and have been using it for all sorts of things. It boils far faster than our kettle did on the gas stove, and I also love the auto shutoff. No more trying to remember if I turned the stove off after I'm at work! It will have its own space in the new kitchen, and will be the primary source for hot water. We are also in the extreme minority in GW land and only have one water source in the kitchen---not even a fridge line! (Okay, technically it's split for the d/w, so I guess that's 1.5...) It's what we had before and we liked it, so we kept it that way. Works for us. I like the idea of an instant hot, but we have a small kitchen and the under-sink real estate was too valuable to put one in. I contemplated a pot filler, but our stove is close enough to the sink that we wouldn't gain that much. Friends who have one that is very close to the sink still love it because it allows them to fill pots with a child in one arm. You still have to put the child down to empty it, of course, but makes it a little easier! We have a hot water dispenser at work, which I do use, but I do find the water is not quite hot enough for tea. I use it anyway for that since I'm lazy, though. :) (You also may be able to change the settings; no clue how it works, exactly.) I've seen steamers (someone around here who posted a finished kitchen recently has one, I think) and they're very cool, but really only logical to have if you steam things virtually every night or if you have a really large kitchen with space that isn't needed for other things.

Weezel, I love my countertop. My house is on the coast in Maine and the countertop looks like a slab of granite from the beach below! My first loves were marble and soapstone, but I felt I needed something more bulletproof than those choices AND the Jet Mist was very budget friendly. No regrets.

Think of it as a shiny tile backsplash with poor vertical alignment. :) There are some pre-patterned stainless steels that can look fairly pretty. Just keep the angle of tilt-out (from vertical) shallow enough that a rising expanding plume that hits it is still reflected upward. Three inches of tilt over 32 inches (less if the range has its own backspash) is easily sufficiently shallow in angle. Even a less observable short metal piece close to the hood could be built and be 30 degrees or less from vertical. For example, a six-inch piece of metal tilted out 3 inches at the top would be at 30 degrees. Tour http://finishedkitchens.blogspot.com/p/kitchens-alphabetically.html for ideas. In any case, a serious gas range needs some consideration of what the wall behind it is made of, and I'd start with 5/8 firecode sheetrock (or stone or brick) covered by something fire resistant, such as metal or tile. Assume a raging grease fire in your planning, because that is what the range manufacturer did to comply with UL and to specify offset distances to combustibles, and what the hood manufacturer did to comply with the hood filters performing their fire blocking function. kas