Most common in this area is burr clover, but would need picture to confirm, as it is more of a spring/summer weed; however, after our recent heavy rains, a bunch sprang up at our local park, so it's possible.

Those prices seem outrageously out of line to me! In early 2010, TOTAL cost for ours, including the actual working vent was less than $2500. Here is a picture of my kitchen where you can see the hood. My custom cabinet maker charged me $800 to make the custom range hood cover out of clear coated mahogany. (I JUST looked up his invoice to make absolutely sure that I was remembering the price correctly.) He designed and built the cover so it would fit over this stainless steel vent hood that we purchased from Sears for about $1500 on sale. The purchased vent rests on a couple of very small ledges inside the custom cover and fits so that bottom edge of the stainless steel hood sits about about 1 inch higher than the lower edge of the curved section on the front face of my vent cover. That way the purchased vent is completely hidden by the vent cover but the controls are easily accessible. In the shot below, (taken from underneath) you can see how the purchased vent fits inside the custom cover and you can see one of the "ledges" at the side of the vent. BTW, I just looked and Sears currently has the exact same stainless steel hood we used on sale for $1626. Here is a link to it: http://www.sears.com/vent-a-hood-euroline-series-model-wall-mount/p-SPM7417651910?prdNo=13&blockNo=13&blockType=G13 Or for even less money, Sears also NOW sells a 27" Broan range vent that is designed specifically to be installed in a custom enclosure for less than $600. See the link below. When we were building, I couldn't find ANY vent hoods that were designed to be installed inside a custom cabinet. (They may have been available but I could not find them for sale to consumers anywhere and I'm usually pretty good at finding things.) Thus we paid extra for the fancy Modern Euro "finish" on ours and then paid to have a custom cabinet cover made to give it the old-fashioned look we like! So, even if cabinet builders are now charging twice what we paid 3 years ago to have our vent cover made, it still looks to me like you should still be able to get the look you want for under $2500. You might need to pay a bit more if a very high powered vent fan is important to you...but the cover alone SHOULD NOT run you anywhere close to $4000. Sounds to me like maybe your cabinet maker probably ONLY knows how to make cabinets (boxes) and drawers and then probably purchases pre-made doors to go on those. He's probably doesn't know HOW to make a vent cover and the mere idea of making one scares him. Thus, he quoted you that utterly ridiculous price in order to scare you off from ordering a vent cover while still hanging on to the rest of your cabinet business. If it were me, I'd talk to another cabinet builder or two. And if by any chance, you're in my neck of the woods (central Texas), I'd be delighted to give you my custom cabinet builder's name. He was absolutely terrific! Here is a link that might be useful: vent designed for installation in a custom mantle style hood.

We have popcorn to remove also. I have done one room so far. It is messy but not hard at all. Not at all. I'd say consider removing it yourself. You spray it with water (I used my DD water bottle that she uses for her hair) and then you scrape the popcorn off with a scraper. When I did it I let the popcorn yuck fall into a small garbage pail. It isn't bad at all. The hardest part is keeping your arms up over your head while standing on a ladder for awhile. That quote is absurd by the way. You can teach a teen ager how to remove the popcorn and pay them a fraction.

Check out these modern dining room photos on houzz and see if anything catches your eye. https://www.houzz.com/photos/modern-dining-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_722~s_2105 Here is a google search for modern industrial dining rooms. https://www.google.com/search?q=modern+industrial+dining+rooms&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi68MK5_ZDYAhXF4yYKHV9DCF4QsAQI3wE&biw=1440&bih=712