3) I've heard that it's a good idea to buy all one brand of appliances so the stainless steel matches. After reading lots of reviews, I'm leaning toward Whirlpool Gold. Any experiences? I'm especially concerned about the wall oven as Whirlpool is not known for ovens. No! No! No! NNNNOOOO! The same brand generally uses different factories to produce different appliances. The sheet metal will come from different suppliers. Even if the same factory with the same supplier produces two appliances in the suite you are considering it is probably a different batch therefore slightly different. The reason some people buy a suite of appliance from one brand is for a rebate. In general you are buying some good appliances and some bad appliances.One brand does not make the best appliance in each category therefore not much of a bargain. Some buy a suite of appliances to match handles,dumb reason IMO to buy from same brand. You can buy DW with integrated handle and cooktops don't have handles. It it best to buy each appliance on it's own merit; just take care you are not buying an appliance with such a unique handle or style it clashes with the rest. My recommendations A) Frigidaire SS 27" Double Oven FFET2725LS $1343 +$166 for 30" http://compare.ebay.com/like/360395237582?var=lv These are better than Whirlpool Gold and as good as any in the mid-priced category. The reason they are cheaper is Frigidaire's brutally efficient factory not cheap parts. The next signifciantly better oven is Electrolux at twice the price. B) Samsung RF263AERS 26 cu. ft. French Door $1452.55 http://www.wdcappliances.com/ProductsDetail.php?SKU=RF263AERS&cse=4 Samsung four-five years in a row JD Powers #1 French Door. C) Bosch evolution 300 series dlx $619 http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=BOSHE43P25UC&id=BOSHE43P25UC&l=FROOGLE Whirlpool Gold is a nice DW that uses a food grinder. This makes it loud. Before enzyme based detergents,you needed a food grinder.Almost all modern DW detergents are enzyme based and work well with DWers with filters. Bosch is a quiet DW with filter. Bosch has been at the top of Consumer Reports rankings and near the top of JD. JD ranks Miele #1 but that outside your price range.CR says you need to spend $500 to get a DW that does its basic function well. I say $600. That leaves room in the budget for a premium cooktop. D) BlueStar RBCT365BSS $1800-$2200 You have to get this local.It depends on local dealer. If your local dealer has a price match policy then abesofmain.com has it for $1800 with free shipping in it's area. Below is a vid about BS burner. Total $5214.55-$5780.55 What are you doing for range hood(Ventilation)? 4) For the amount of money I'd spend on a cooktop and double wall oven, I could get a really nice range. I bake and cook a LOT so the double oven is appealing, I think I may be romanticizing the idea of a double wall oven. Thoughts? Is it worth it? If you like baking in your toaster oven and think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread then you may find yourself only using one oven and the toaster oven. If you find the the toaster oven bakes uneven and dries out food you will probably turn on both ovens. I would get the double ovens. BTW Did I mention I think it is a bad idea to get all appliaces from one brand? I know someone will post they got all their appliances from one brand and they just LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! Still a bad idea IMO. You should get the best appliance for your money not just appliances that are much better than the old appliances they replaced. BTW II I will leave questions 1 and 2 to someone else. Here is a link that might be useful: BS Link

There is the frequently asked questions for dummies that has help regarding plumbing and rough-ins. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2290466/faq-answers-bathroom-plumbing-for-dummies?n=79

I think that it would be difficult to to what you have described in the kitchen alone $50,000...of course some of it depends on the finishes but when you are discussing the type of the labor that is involved I am not sure if cheap finishes would even make sense. The first step is probably to think about what you are really willing to put into this house. Are your neighbors doing this type of upgrades are or they tearing down or are these starter houses where the values is in the fact that it is a very affordable neighborhood? This may not be important to you; your budget may be unlimited and you may want to stay in this house no matter what. We talked to three different contractors and they all needed a different level of detail to prepare a quote (one recommended that we start by going to an architect). They each had their preferred cabinet vendors. They each had different ways of doing things; one was going to send up down to city hall to get our permit and did not think we needed a structural engineer to draw up our beam; we went with the contractor who took care of the permit and we hired a structural engineer. Both of the bids that we did get did include some options...undercabinet lighting; tile backsplash vs 4" granite splash, trex vs pressure treated wood for the new deck. We found finding pricing information difficult, but you will also find that a lot of the things that are discussed regularly on this forum are quite expensive... For our kitchen we decided to use a countertop microwave rather than a microwave drawer because it looked to me like the drawers started at $500... I originally wanted a wood hood, we will be doing a stainless hood with wood cabinets on top (I don't like the currently popular chimney hoods) I wanted a built in oven with a tile backsplash behind, until I started comparison shopping between built ins and freestanding ovens But their are other places we decided to go ahead and splurge...I have 9' ceilings and I am getting the stacked cabinets that I really wanted and we decided on a group D granite. The gardenweb kitchen forum (a separate link here) can be very helpful in thinking about how you want to lay out this new kitchen.

Will you be having framed or frameless cabinets? How high is your ceiling, and will your upper cabinets meet the ceiling? Have you thought about undercabinet lighting? Your base cabinets should be mostly or all drawers, not cabinets. How big of a sink do you want? You need to ensure your sink cabinet is a good width to hold a useful-sized sink; I recommend d a 36” sink base cabinet unless you are going for the workstation sinks which require much wider sink base cabinets. Make sure you have an 18” distance between the counters and the bottom of the upper cabinets. If you are keeping your appliances make sure you allow for their sizes with your new counters and cabinets - fridges in particular can be tricky. What counter material will you be getting? That is a whole subject on its own.