I like the red -- very cute! You may want to try the Home Decorating forum too. Those folks are really enthusiastic about color selections.

I just photographed my cab next to range for another thread--an example of Lynk aftermarket pullouts used for pots and pans. Ikea sells pullout stuff too and RevAShelf. Look and think. [Apologies for posting same photo twice in two days.] We screwed a piece of wood to center back just above upper shelf to keep the upper shelf from kicking up when pullout is extended. Still allows us to go back and reposition in future if we decide we want different shelf positions. These were abt $45 plus tax each on sale--17 inches wide. There are other styles but the good thing about this style is visibility. (Perhaps your contractor can get some at cost and install them so you can avoid tax?) At this cost, it would be abt $100 to retrofit two shelves and they can be done over time. What would new drawers cost? Get a price. If you didn't know about lower drawers, would you miss them as much? Pretend you didn't know, which apparently was the case!

Thank you all for the suggestions! We plan to tackle the carpeted area, just looking for flooring to match the rest of the house. It is right by the front door, but the section was odd and the color was a light beige. Also, new backsplash and countertops will be added to the kitchen so thanks for pointing that out! I plant to remove that mantle and paint the brick around the fireplace. Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely post pictures along the way.

Comedy of errors (only after we had a few drinks was it comedic) 1. We greatly underestimated the effort to paint textured walls, especially on the ceiling. That and we're 15 years older than many of the projects we've done the past. 2. Turns out we got the wrong color paint. I'm not sure why I had a different color paint stuck in my head and even though I checked color swatches I still got it wrong. And now that we're going to pay someone to do it I definitely want to make sure the color is right. Only after I came back to this post did I realize I gave the store the wrong color. We're going to suck it up and pay someone to do it which is good because that also includes trim and doors. Although now I have to take a week off of work. Good news: we can donate the paint to Habitat for Humanity ReStore.