Sorry to hear this. We were in the exact same spot. Our home is 660k, 3800 sq ft. Our combined kitchen + cab allowance was $24k. The builder offers a choice between MC & Shiloh. Notice the similarities :( We ended up eating the extra Shiloh costs. MC is not that great, so we're doing it only in the mudroom. Total cab cost ended up being 38k. Shiloh everywhere, MC in the mud, only 3 upper cabs. It's a cool trend I've seen actually where you do a wide open space, with lots of windows and few upper cabinets. Try that look, perhaps it'll work for you. We don't have a lot of stuff to store, so we dropped a bunch of upper cabs, added windows instead and really happy with the result. (Hopefully, drywall is not even up yet) :)

Hi mollie, we also have that problem. We've got white molding throughout the downstairs and the kitchen and family room are open to one another. The kitchen cabinets are a cabernet stained birch. After much debate and discussion, we put the white over the windows and the door to the dining room. I am not thrilled with how they look next each other, but I love the dark moldings above the cabinets, and I love the white in the rest of the house. If we put the stained molding everywhere in the kitchen, that would create a strip of dark color that looked kind of odd up there above the door and windows. I think the ideal solution would be to repaint all the moldings a color that goes better with the stained, so that the contrast is not so strong. However, that just starts a domino effect of "issues" with changing wall color, valances, the ceiling color etc. Did not want to go there. Darn these open floor plans, decorating gets more challenging. I have seen others put the stained or darker crown above the windows. In fact the painter thought we should have done it that way. It is really a personal preference. I certainly didn't think about what kitchen cabinets I would eventually have years ago when we chose the white crown molding.

I have to laugh when people start talking about "what your time is worth". Really? You work billable hours when you're at home? Because that's the only way that your time is worth more than doing for yourself. You have to actually have the capability to EARN the money before you can count it as a loss if you spend your time doing something else, LOL! It is not clamshell molding. Now that we've closed and I'm in the house I have had a chance to examine it more closely. And yes, they are plaster walls so the chances of damaging the walls pulling it off are not worth the effort of doing so, nor is the molding of any sort of quality that would make it worthwhile to try to put it back on even if you COULD get it off without damaging the wall and/or the molding itself. I strongly suspect - because the paint on the molding is not 57 years thick - that at some point the original molding was entirely removed and replaced with much cheaper stock. And there is quarter round placed all the way around along the bottom, so pulling THAT off will give me the space I need to tape down protective sheets to preserve the (visible portions) of the floor. It appears that what has happened here is that they pulled off all the old molding in order to put down cheap pseudo-laminate (actually vinyl) flooring, and then stuck up this cheaper modern stuff. The rest of the house is tiled. The vinyl flooring is in good shape, with only a couple of places where they screwed up installation (too much gap between a couple of pieces, one place where it has an odd bump). I wouldn't have used it, but replacing it would be totally unwarranted. I didn't yell at anybody. What I did was reiterate the statement I originally made because whoever that was ignored the original parameters of the question. If you don't know, don't answer. Telling someone they have to do things YOUR way when they've already said they're not doing that (and why) is not exactly living life according to Miss Manners. If you want, consider it casting pearls before swine. I'm happy to be the swine in your made up scenario if that makes you happy, LOL! I have ultimately decided I don't need to bother much with the molding other than to clean it up, given that it is MUCH newer and of much lower quality than I had thought. But I have a thing for old houses - preferably much older than this one - and I expect that my next move (which is dependent on my son's geographical location, when that is settled) will take me into an area where I am more likely to find something older and hopefully not already gutted. So the useful information and ideas that have been listed here is being saved for future use. Plus, I can just bet that I'm not the only one who would ever use those ideas and techniques. Others can also glean useful ideas from the conversation. BTW - I'm not sure I see why having paint in the cracks after stripping is a problem - unless you're planning to stain maybe. I was planning on repainting it. So it wouldn't have been a problem, plus I have a variety of sharp little tools from my days as a silversmith (past) and potter (present), so picking that out of there would only have been tedious, not impossible. Oh yeah - no trim is coming down. There needs to be a better reason for removing trim than because you think it might be easier to strip it. Especially when you're talking about plaster walls and 57 year old pieces of trim, LOL! If I can strip the stiles on the bookshelves and cabinets in place, I can manage the trim as well. The only issue I had with the baseboards was keeping the stripper from melting the vinyl flooring. That's not even remotely an issue with the built in book case, thankfully. I really really really like that particular feature. Thanks to everyone who paid attention and tried to be helpful. I still need some of these ideas for stripping the built-ins (cabinets and bookshelves) in place, because those aren't being dismantled either. Thanks again.

Finish nails can be used. With thin material like those strips, I'd also consider a full-length bead of adhesive, otherwise it's possibly it'll ripple due to its inherent lack of rigidity. When cutting with a power tool, don't go too slow with the blade or you'll friction-melt the material and gum up the cutting edge of the blade. Be deliberate. When you do cut, you may still get some "melt" that hangs on to the board at the cut line. Give it a second to cool and it'll break right off when you brush your hand against it. If you try to break it off right after you cut it you can burn your fingertips. PVC "sawdust" can static cling to every and anything. Vacuuming as you cut will help keep the particles from wandering. You can glue it to itself with PVC cement. A little can go a long way. Understand that PVC doesn't necessarily just adhere two pieces together. It slightly dissolves the surface and the surfaces intermingle and bond together. Thin pieces of PVC like outside miters, you can deform the material with too much PVC cement. If you use PC cement and get squeeze out, don't wipe it across the face of your trim board. It can mar the surface and leave a slightly different sheen/texture. Finish nails can be used.