Teppy, In my gut I know that I will not do as good a job as you did if I try to paint on my own. You have excellent taste and are very meticulous. Me....not so much. I do have a laundry room I can experiment with if I need to. I am definitely going to get a quote from a painting company, think I found one, that paints woodwork, cabinet and such. They do a lot of work for builders and had excellent pictures online. I have to get an exterior quote as well. When I get closer to actually beginning I'll post before pictures. I tried previously but couldn't figure it out. Maybe I'll take a look again this weekend. Yes, there is enough room for walking if the seating is added. It would be so nice for entertaining, cooking with the kids, kids doing homework etc. We have an eating nook that accomodates only a 48" round table comfortablly so the extra space would be nice plus it's just more social. I want to compare the painting cost vs. refacing. I'm actually hoping it's not that different because then the KD w/the refacing company could be the GC for the whole job whereas if we go the painting route I'll have find a GC on my own. Will defenitely try to figure out the picture deal so I can post. Thanks for the responses. Z.

Hey man looks like you did a stand up job fixing your pool by reading the comments. For some reason I am unable to see the pictures. I would love to see them though if you would be willing to send them to me? Also I just recently purchased a fixer upper house myself with a pool in the back yard. The previous owners filled it in with dirt when they got to old to take care of it. After digging a little of it up I have determined that it was a liner pool that was a wood frame. I intend to undertake the project myself in time. I would love any and all advice from you if you would be willing to email back and forth me a little. Row797@hotmail.com

desert, I plan to get out to some showrooms this week to see what's there and I'm really hoping that will help move me forward a lot more. When we built this house, we hooked up a trailer and drove to Dalton GA and came back with all the flooring needed to do the entire house. It was easier to make choices when we were looking at the entire roll and not just small samples. We got terrific deals and then just paid the labor to have everything installed by a friend of DH. For the majority of other items we spent hours at Lowes. lanval, I plan to give the island a new top along with whatever we choose for the countertops and I know that will help spruce it up more. Originally we were told there was no room for an island at all, but our cabinet guy designed the funky shape to fit one in. I wish we had space to redesign it to allow more of a rectangle shape with an overhang to fit a couple of stools, but there is just not enough space around the u-design of my current layout. Anne, DH is assigned the reno to his brother. He doesn't have time to get involved in the work itself. That's probably a good thing since we end up disagreeing on details most of the time. I've learned we just see things from different perspectives because I'm considering details he thinks are not important. And since the kitchen is not really his domain, I don't want to get into a power struggle over the choices I make. I tried to discuss the timing with him yesterday and he sees no problem moving ahead with the April schedule. I pointed out the events coming up that will coincide with the time the kitchen is torn apart, and his basic outlook/comment is "it's no big deal"...he's just a 'get'r done' kinda guy. I tried to remind him this is not one of his empty houses that is unoccupied and the fact there is more involved than just slapping on a countertop and being done. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard, but I can see the entire kitchen torn apart and me being stressed enough over that while trying to juggle our spring busy season and my DD's precious time left living at home knowing the activities associated with that. Plus the responsibilities of finishing up our eoy business details is difficult enough alone, and now I'm sposed to be doing research/legwork to plan a kitchen reno. I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but when I say 'overwhelmed' I'm not exaggerating. If I could just put everything else in my life on hold right now, it might be no problem, but everything else is not going to just stop. I'm glad you see what I'm feeling about the timing of my DD last days at home. Just last year when she wanted to have her after-prom party here, I had some mini meltdowns feeling overwhelmed with my regular daily workload and then adding more to it. This year isn't looking much better... Anyway, to clarify some of the questions you asked: I broke the measurements into 2 sections since the bar seems to separate it into 2 areas. The nook area is 13'x9'8". The kitchen area is 9'5"x13'2" but that is only the actual floor space. The cabinets are 25" deep so you could add that to the width of 9.5 for a size of the actual room. The garage is on the other end of the house. There is door to the backyard patio in the nook area. The original plan called for columns and a more open floorplan. DH chose to change it to large c.o. I posted pics from different angles to try to show this. I measured everything you asked to help clarify; fridge is 35"Dx35"W - cab depth is 25" - MW cab is 29"D - raised bar is 12"D. I checked the face frame of cabs and it appears the only ones sharing is the section to the right of the sink where the raised bar is. The rest are chopped up due to the DW, stove, and corner that leads to the MW cab. I'm trying to visualize the changes you suggested...I guess I need to sketch it out to understand it completely. Since his brother is doing the reno, it actually gives me more comfort b/c I know is fully capable of any little details I bring up. At this point...right now...I'm in panic mode after talking with DH last night and he totally doesn't get my lack of enthusiasm about the schedule. He makes it sound so easy. The ct can be done in one day, the floor can be done in one day... what's the problem??? Arrggh!! happy, Glad to hear of your wp sucess, painted and stripped. I hung every bit of the paper in this house and have 3 baths of wp also facing stripping.

Well, a happy ending-- I did go with the Putnam Ivory -and it looks wonderful. It is a definite tan/beige but not dark. I actually agree that I probably could have done darker, but I am pleased. I do have the white fixtures and white trim/window blinds etc so it shows nicely. And, DH who doesnt say much on color, commented what a good color it was in the room and why dont I consider it for the kitchen..ahem that is a huge compliment. The funny thing was I got a call yesterday at work from him saying the painter started and came to him to ask if it was the right color because it was so dark. He said it was a deep rust color? I said no way- it turns out somehow he had gotten BM HC49 instead of HC39 (putnam ivory). Got a good laugh about that one. I will take pictures shortly. The mirrors and lighting/towel bars and hooks are still not up. So I need to now finalize my hardware. I had posted it in the other post and no one commented on them. I think I have to decide today so here is what I am thinking. This is the pull, which I will probably use on all drawers and doors. But a piece of me is thinking that I might just use it on the drawers, and maybe do knobs on the doors? Any thoughts? hopefully before I have to let them know. If you click the link, it should bring you to the pull. Then if you put m1610 in the search box it should show the knob. I am really wondering if it would be good to mix and match or just do the pulls. And above is the layout of the vanity- 2 vanities each with 2 doors (3 fake drawers on top) and a bank of drawers that... Here is a link that might be useful: pull