LOL! Now you couldn't miss that fridge! I agree that a kitchen is meant to be used. While I'd like to have a cleaner house...sometimes it just has to wait a few hours, when there's horses to feed, fences to walk, gardens to weed, etc. Always something happening on the farm, especially in the summer! I walked the fence again last night...I think I found my own version of extreme sports :) Actually, just having a place to store everything and a little more counterspace than I do now, would be wonderful! I'd like to start baking bread, but I just don't have the room. That's one reason I think the baking area will be such a benefit. I'm thinking wood on two sides, with maybe marble on the other. As for light, I have windows on each end, but I don't really have a way to open it up to the kitchen...but I could use a nine light (glass on top) door to the mudroom.

Unfortunately it gets a lot messier than that. We haven't been able to get back into court to get a new order made up. We tried for a year, but she would pull stall tactics, fire her lawyers, etc. So we tried to reach an out of court agreement (at our lawyers suggestion). Bad idea...she would agree to something, then come up with an excuse to change her mind. For example we agreed to supervised access, so she couldn't make any more accusations of abuse, but she wouldn't accept the ones we proposed, she took three months to come up with the names of two people she would accept, and then when we met with and agreed to one of them a week later she came back and said that the supervisor she had proposed was no longer acceptable to her. Then we came to another agreement and three days before we were supposed to see them, she got a letter from a therapist (who'd only seen daughter twice, and never spoken to DH) that said daughter shouldn't have any contact with her dad, based on what mom had said, and that daughter is afraid of him and refers to him by his first name or as "Bad Daddy". (Amazing what 2 year, at that time, of brainwashing a young child will do.) This past fall we were again about to reach an agreement and she filed for, and got, an emergency protection order against DH, based on the story that daughter (who hasn't seen him since she wes 3.5) saw bad daddy at the window and banging on the door of their house, to intimidate them. I got a late night visit from the police to be served with the EPO on Dh's behalf, and then they seized all the firearms and bows in the house (right at the start of huntiong season). DH had been working 8 hours away at the same time he was 'witnessed', and fortunately had all the documentation to prove it (The judge threw it out and gave her a warning). We provided opposing council with an affidavit and notice of motion in November (so we could go back into court, since then, DH has been cross examined on his affidavit, and we still haven't received a responding affidavit from her... Long story short...the Order that is in place (from when he was accused) states that he can only have access that is supervised by someone she is agreeable to. (And the only people she is agreeable to is her mother or new husband...neither of whom we trust to provide a fair representation of the visits.) If we can get a new order in place and she still won't let him see them, then they can hold her in contempt...but until we can get a new order in place, technically she isn't doing anything that isn't within her requirements. It's extremely frustrating!! They are now proposing a psych evaluation of EVERYONE (DH and I, our son, her, her hubby, and the kids) before access is allowed to resume. Our lawyer informs us that if we get the wrong judge, we'll end up forced to do it to see the kids but it costs $4K and I'm not sure where we'll come up with the money to do something like that. It's just a rotten deal all around because DH just wants to be there for his kids and be able to tell them he loves them. The real kicker is that what we've been fighing for equates to 6 (24 hour) days of access out of an entire year (in 3 hr segments, because mom says the kids won't be able to handle more time than that away from her) and she'd not even willing to give him that (even though through all of this he's never missed a support payment.) Oh, last fall DH and I were both also fingerprinted because the delapidated heap they were fixing up magically burned down and she fingered us as the prime suspects (hello insurance money...), and then in the house they ended up moving into, was supposedly broken into and the rooms tossed, but the only things stolen were court documents...so down to the police station with our (then) 6 month old, so Mommy and Daddy can make a statement saying we never broke in, and so they could get our prints on file. We have received calls or had visits from the police over a dozen times in the past three years, all because of accusations made by her, and all it has taken to spark some of these episodes is for DH to pass her on the road and accidently make eye contact. (Then she tells the police he followed her to the mall or wherever, where he then proceded to verbally assault or threaten her and tell her he is going to kidnap the children, etc.) According to the accusations she's made to the police, DH makes Genghis Khan look like a saint. :-P The whole system is messed up and it's completely ill-equiped to deal with these really messy situations.

I agree that a garage door is not a facade. And I agree that in a Victorian nieghborhood--or any neighborhood, the new or infill houses should engage the street in the Same Manner as the other houses on the street. But I think there is a difference between engagement and hostility. The Glessner House hardly engages the street but the facade is certainly interesting enough to interest one as you walk by. The thing that I don't like about the house in the original post is the relative blankness of the left, the strange ajar door, and the appearance of mildew--that provides a feeling of neglect. But when I think of my new house for example, the only way that the street could be engaged at all would be to set the house on the rear lot line and obliterate any possibility of a backyard. The front would not be particularly comfortable to use, because it would still be on the sidewalk. But the inside of the house is quite a surprise. Two complete walls of glass, two outdoor spaces in a neighborhood where one's outdoor space may be wide enough for a trashcan, and where most windows must be covered for privacy. In contrast there is ONE window in my entire house that absolutely needs to be covered for privacy (or decency's sake) The other large expanses of glass could go completely uncovered due to their placement. "I would not want to feel as though I had been institutionalized or incarcerated living in one of those concrete fortresses." I can't say that I really understand this comment because most of the houses we are talking about are mostly glass, and engage the outdoors more than a typical house, just not at the front door.

You're making me dizzy.lol. Slow down and make a task list. Get your head focused on just one item at a time and go find it. I'd start with drapes for the dining room and living room and get them hung. From there I'd proceed to find the set for the dining room. That done, I'd take a break and enjoy the holidays and then start on the kitchen backsplash and continue on but taking it slow so as to not make mistakes which only complicate things. You're in over drive, we all do that kind of thinking at times. More importantly enjoy the process.