Hi Swampee. Whether or not you can recast a 1950s ranch into an Arts & Crafts mode despends mostly on the aesthetic quality of the house itself. An informal, semi-rustic 1950s ranch, with spacious rooms & wide openings between them; with tall gables over tall, vertically divided windows; with a dark-toned hipped or gabled roof with deeply cantilevered eaves; with broad accent walls & heavy piers of rubble stone rock or tapestry brick; and with rough-sawn wooden siding might make a perfect background for Craftsman-style pieces, just as it is, and for a simple reason: both the earlier furniture & the later house spring from similar aesthetic impulses & both therefore have a similar respect for the subtle beauty of natural colors & materials. The Gamble House in Pasadena, despite its early date, is nothing so much as a well-executed 195Os ranch blown up to giant size. If, on the other hand, your house is the kind of 195Os house my friends all had when I was growing up--with small rooms, narrow hallways & hollow-core doors; with short double-hung windows surrounded by skimpy trim, with pink-&-black plastic tile in the baths; with turquoise counters & appliances in the kitchen; with gigantic plate-glass picture windows flanked by teensy wooden shutters; with a pale gray asphalt tile roof & only a band of one or two courses of gray cinderblocks to separate the expanse of wide-lap pastel siding from a wide swatch of crewcut crabgrass--then trying to create the expansive aura of an earlier period will be a harder--but not impossible--task, and here's a paragraph from Edith Wharton's The Decoration of Houses, that--despite the fact that it was written in 1897, and that it's talking about rooms, and that it's talking about a completely different style than the one we're discussing here, besides--explains why: "[T]he esence of a style lies not in its use of ornament but in its handling of proportion. Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure. In other words, decoration is always subservient to proportion, and a room, whatever its decoration may be, must represent the style to which its proportions belong. The less cannot include the greater. Unfortunately, it is usually by ornamental details, rather than by proportion, that people distinguish one style from another. To many persons, garlands, bow-knots, quivers & a great deal of gilding represent the Louis XVI style. [A]n architect familiar with the subject knows that a Louis XVI room may may exist without any of these, and he often deprecates these as representing the cheaper & more trivial effects of the period, and those that have most helped vulgarize it. In fact, in nine cases out of ten, his use of them is a concession to the client, who having asked for Louis XVI room, would would not know he had got it were these details left out." In other words, you can't just stick leaded glass doors, copper lanterns & Craftsman-style wooden brackets onto a typical 195Os tract house, Mr. Potato Head-style, and expect to get a good-looking result. It doesn't work that way. But that doesn't mean you're stuck with aqua siding & white wrought-iron porch railings, either. It's just a matter of using the right colors & finishes & planting materials, materials that are compatible with both the actual period of the house itself and the also with the feel of the earlier period, rather than trying to gussy-up your house with inauthentic details that are incompatible with the structure--the proportions--of your house and that have a sstuck-on look. How about posting some photos so we can see what you have to work with? Regards, MAGNAVERDE

CEF, even dumping $300,000 into our house, we would have to spend more than twice that to get what we want elsewhere. It is expensive in my neck of the woods! We are in an awesome neighborhood, with great neighbors, amazing school system (to stay in this school system we would have to pay double AND remodel) and we are very close to metro, shops, DC etc. we love our house and we want to make it ours! Our kitchen will only be about 120 sq ft. Same size. The four of us fit here perfectly. :) I hate needing lights during daylight hours so lots of natural light appeals to me. we also have a very nice back yard and look forward to the views. I used to really like separation. Now, I like a little, with some more open spaces. Our living area is actually large compared to the rest of the house. Just because you open it up doesn't mean you will lose the other spaces. I think it really depends on how you want to live your life in your home. What is important to you won't be important to others. I think if you live your personal life in a way where you are always saying "gosh, I wish this were more open so that I could (fill in the blank)" then I think it you should really consider it. I don't think you need a huge house to make yours more open. JMHO. I am considering posting updates on the small house forum.

For budget reasons, you probably should not move appliances very far. My first thought would be something like the following (hope it is legible). This maximizes counterspace, which may or may not be what you most desire. To maximize storage, the pantry is full-height, and around 15-18 inches deep. It would hold much more than just upper cabinets. You did not show a photo of your buffet window, but I am guessing that you might need to raise the window sill, which could be a big budget item.

If the only issue with the tile between windows is the color, I would just remove and replace with something more aesthetically pleasing and cohesive to the end layout. I would think replacing the window would be an expense you could use elsewhere since budget is a consideration. I know people advise on 18" dishwashers but I live alone and find that my standard 24" dishwasher is not large enough to hold everything especially if I have actually cooked or baked so that it isn't just a plate and coffee cup but bowls and Cuisinart and Tupperware etc. I wouldn't deliberately install a 18" dishwasher just as I wouldn't deliberately install a super small refrigerator. I am not a KD but I think your kitchen is large enough to accommodate normal appliances - I have an 10 foot galley kitchen which held a 30" stove and 24" dishwasher. Since you have counter over the dishwasher all you would gain would be 6" of lower storage. While not ideal, I stored stuff I didn't use frequently like holiday cookie cutters in storage away from the kitchen - not really that different from people who store stuff in their garage or basement especially since the distance to where I kept infrequently used items was actually closer than my friends' attached garages.