We don't have a master bath - just a rather large hall bath, and I have no doubt that we will have overimproved for the neighborhood. We live in a working class area with a mix of single and multi-family housing. We love the area though and have no plans to leave it. We did splurge on some areas (fixtures mostly) and went super low budget on other areas (tile). What we could have gotten on the $15k for a 100+ sf bath (a huge luxury in this area to begin with) would have been a lot of fiberglass and home depot grade faucets and wasted space. To me it wouldn't have been worth the bother/hassle to end up with crap for $15k. Instead we have a cast iron clawfoot tub, a nice walk in shower and a pair of sinks with granite remnant countertops and a bathroom in a classic style that will last the rest of our lives. For the extra $10k (half the price of a mid-grade car) will have a bathroom that is beautiful, classic, functional and durable. I'd rather share my almost 7 year old honda accord with my husband than have a new car and a cruddy bath.

Hi everyone. Thanks for all the great suggestions!! Many I've never heard of so can't wait to bookmark and explore. One I forgot about is Lonny.com. The online version of a magazine I would probably never spend the $ to buy, but what I like about it is you can run your curser over many products in the photos and it will provide price and purchase info. Like the immediacy of that. Always hate having to flip to the product pages in the back of magazines. bethohio3. Good suggestion. I've tried that in the past, but had trouble remembering them and or passwords! Maybe I should try again. Thanks.

Thanks for all the kind words. I still look at it in disbelief that it came together so well. Kompy,yeah, the title was tongue-in-cheek, because I was warned about using friends as contractors, but I knew these guys and their work ethic, so I wasn't worried. Cabinets are clear maple with a natural finish, from a local custom maker in Salt Lake, Mt Tech cabinets. Countertops are Maron Cohiba granite. They almost read as black from a distance, but are deep brown and scattered with gold flecks, small fractures, large flakes, etc. Really have a lot of depth. Backsplash is from Daltile, from the Urban Metals collection, UM01. It's a running brick pattern with pewter grout. It's kind of weird, not really tile, almost a composite substrate with a thin laminate of shiny material that also has specks & color. Hard to describe. The whole thing was really a collaboration with input from a number of different people. I had a rough idea of what I wanted, and had spent a lot of time talking about it with Dale & Damion, my friends who were the contractors. Dale loves to do the "Craftsman" style woodworking, so a modernized version of that style was the base. The original kitchen was cut in half by a bank of cabinets that totally cut off the "dining" area, with the original stove in that section, and the old sink where the range is now. I really wanted to open up the kitchen and join all that space, so that also was one of the primary design criteria. From there, things just developed, and as we went along, I decided that I'm only going to do this once, and I wanted to do it right, and do justice to the beautiful woodworking that the guys were doing. I was also fortunate to meet and enlist the services of a great designer, Carrie Snyder of Avatar Design in Salt Lake. Carrie was just awesome at coming in at crucial moments to make sure things worked together. She did the lighting plan, helped me choose the countetop material, chose the backsplash, and all of the interior wall colors. The walls are Pratt & Lambert "Briarwood", with accent walls of "Clove Dust", and some "Chalk Grey", with the same Chalk Grey ceilings. All of the woodwork was laboriously hand sanded, then shot with sanding sealer, sanded again, then shot with three coats of lacquer. One of the details that you cant' see in the photos is that the baseboard is 5/8" thick, the jamb legs 3/4" thick, then the frieze boards on top step out another 1/8" to 1", so there is a three dimensional step out on the trim, which was all milled in my garage. Anyway, I hope I've answered some of your questions without prattling on too much like a proud papa. If you could have seen what this house looked like before, you would not believe it. I bought the house in 1988, and the entire thing (including bathrooms!!) was carpeted with a short blue-green industrial looking carpet, all walls were the same battleship grey, (it was listed as a "Newport Contemporary Solarium") The transformation has been awesome to watch. This past Monday I got my final inspection, and was able to start moving back upstairs after spending the last 6 months in my dungeon of a basement with my two Bengal cats, (hence the screen name). I don't have any more photos at the moment, but would love to share some of the rest of the house when I get back home from work in 2 weeks. Thanks again for looking & listening! I got a lot of great information from the folks on this forum, so if there is anything that I may be able to contribute, just ask. BTW, the range is a Blue Star, 36" RNB with charbroiler. I haven't really had the chance to cook on it yet, but the installation was relatively painless (it's heavy!), and all burners, ignitors, broiler, etc worked perfectly first time.

I like that name "Oregon Trail Millennial" — my age is of that in between era of firmly Millennial or Gen-X. I think my experience with homes and remodeling has straddled the generations equally. I used to watch home improvement shows on PBS, before there were cable channels dedicated to the topic, and I was a regular on the original GardenWeb site, before Houzz was even around. I've seen so many building and design trends and ideas come and go, but I've certainly embraced the trends that would likely be considered new school by older generations. Ideas such as green building/sustainability, quality over quantity, a love of throwback/time-proven designs (Mid-century, Craftsman, Scandinavian, etc.), reuse/recycling, DIY — all seem to be pretty important to Millennials. It's all new spins on old-school traditions and, at their core, ideas that can be practiced both frugally and safely (e.g. You may tire of a chair, but it's been in style for 100 years so it's unlikely to become dated). My experience diverges though in that I'm on my third home, and the second one that I will have remodeled. I learned my lessons from the first remodel, after using all that easy money the banks were throwing at us to make improvements. Sure it was a nice house when it was done, and I severely miss my kitchen — but I couldn't pay for it on my own, even with a roommate, so it had to be sold at an overall loss when my ex and I divorced. My current project, where barring any major life changes I intend to own until I'm old and gray, is a 1929 Craftsman that had most of the upgrades I was shopping for (new electric cause I didn't want to deal with that again!) but still needs a lot of TLC. In perhaps true Millennial style, I purchased this property for well, well under what the banks said I was approved to spend. I made a choice to forgo all the bells and whistles and spend no more than what could be covered by slinging coffee at a Starbucks. And, unless I add on square footage (or build an apartment for my mother that lives with me) I plan to continue paying cash for my upgrades. The DIY progress is slower, but damn if it isn't financially prudent. And yeah, not being house rich and cash poor means I get to do things like travel or pursue other hobbies that make me as equally happy as having a really nice house. To get to the actual question, projects in the mix include finishing up adding insulation to the walls, cause you know they couldn't be bothered to add that in 1929, hand oiling the wood floors, rehabbing windows and planning for bigger jobs — like the exterior painting and roofing that I'll not foolishly DIY. Hiring pros to do work, as someone with enough knowledge to be dangerous, means bringing in vendors that have a client-centric process, good communication skills, and because it's happened, aren't sexist/ageist/generally crummy people. At the end of the day, I have to like the people that are working on my house, because we're going to likely be seeing a lot of each other if it's a bigger project.