Thanks for all the comments. The LA is DC based. I am near Harrisburg, outside of his normal service area (CL ad ran in Baltimore and was picked up as a "nearby" area to us). He has a guy who is Baltimore based who might be interested in the work, but his interest will be higher if we do more of the project at once rather than phased since that would be a ride for him too. That doesn't perfectly match my fund from cash reserves approach, but the HELOC rate is real low and my employment is stable. The LA would help administer the project, but I believe only if we contract him to do the construction documents vs the concept doc's. Which is a % for the construction docs, plus hourly for the administration (where he might not be local to supervise easily). We re-did the basement in the old house and we juggled contractors which wasn't a ton of fun. I guess I did it for cost savings, but it was certainly work. We (my wife in particular) are organized and capable, but there is always the knowledge gap to deal with. I don't think we'd do it for a neighbor though. The cash benefit is nice, but we'd need the future dividends of the work done right and the improvements being ours, at least for our period of ownership. I prefer the materials LA is proposing. A part of me wonders if it over improves the property to the neighborhood, if the neighbors are all using pavers or blocks. We hope to be in the house ten more years, but it won't be our last place. I expect to take a financial loss on these improvements. But I do expect the improvements to make our place sell faster. The people my wife knows in the expensive neighborhood would definitely let us see their yards. I just don't if the people she knows have done anything. I can find out. I'll ask the LA if he cares if I post the design concept on the net if anyone wants to see what we are working towards.

@mark1993, can i ask if your professional installer immediately sealed your pavers after install? also, what color did you install? i recently constructed a home and all of my outdoor patios/front porch are Rice White Peacocks. The initial design was going to match my modern construction beautifully except my Builder and his sub contractor did not seal the pavers for over 65 days. Now I am stuck with discolored and stained pavers that even if I clean with a more acidic cleaner (not recommended per Peacock), it actually eats through the paver turning it more of the concrete color, which is what the product is made of. I'm wondering had they been installed/sealed properly from the start, I wouldnt be fighting all of the issues with them I am now. Thank you in advance for your reply.

Jaynees, Aboutto get Dusty, amandapadgett, and donaleen: thank you for your comments. I enjoy watching everyone's kitchens come together on this forum. We are all truly blessed to have such beautiful kitchens. Taggie: thank you, we love the sitting area too. When we bought the house that area was set up as a dinette . We didn't like the look of a dinette table and dining table practically side by side so we turned into a comfy sitting area. Seems like someone is always sitting there. My sister turned me on to Tech Lighting. A bit pricey but I am glad that I went with them. Oldbat2be: thanks, I followed your backsplash saga. Yours is certainly beautiful. I had a sample of cabinet wood and knew I wanted dark counters. I started out looking at the lowest priced granite and the verde peacock had my favorite color in it so that was an easy decision. I took a sample of the granite to a couple tile stores and that one jumped out of the box of samples and said, "pick me" just like a little puppy at the dog pound did one day. Unlike most GWers, I ordered my backsplash tile before anything else was actually ordered. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't suddenly be discontinued.

I have large expanses of countertop and all of mine looks the same. I remember the granite guy saying that they had to be careful picking slabs that were very close to looking the same. The slabs vary in look. My cousin has the same granite as mine, but it looks totally different because the quartz pieces are much larger in her slabs. So my guess is that maybe there wasn't enough attention paid to slab choice by the granite shop. It's always a good idea to tell the shop that when the slabs arrive, you want to approve them before they start making the tops, just to be sure the slabs are close matches.