Hello Sting, My name is Jon and I work with a company called Chariot Wholesale. We specialize in selling sinks and are expanding into faucets. I have beautiful copper apron front sinks and beat most prices on e-bay. Our copper is very thick 16 gauge. Copper should be cleaned with a sponge and mild dish soap. One of the benefits to copper sinks is that they have natural anti-bacterial properties. This means that bacteria in the sink is killed by the copper sink itself. If you read this post in time, send me an e-mail or call us and I can provide more information to you about picking and installing an apron front sink. Please visit our website at www.chariotwholesale.com/. Not all of our products are on our website. It is under construction as we are changing web site designers currently. Here is a link that might be useful: Chariot Wholesale website

What you want sounds like an unfitted or evolved kitchen. I would recommend Johnny Grey as well for ideas. I found his books to be very helpful. You won't have to tear everything out of your grandmother's kitchen to start again, if you don't want to. Johnny Grey's aunt was cooking writer Elizabeth David. Her kitchen, which he shows in one of his books, is a real inspiration. We live in an 1850's farmhouse and I decided I wanted a functional kitchen that looked like it had been collected by us and the previous owners sometime during the lifespan of the house. We have some separate pieces and some fixed cabinetry, some antiques, some reproductions, some old favourites from previous kitchens, some built or adapted for this one. We hid the DW and fridge behind cabinet panels and used a Heartland Legacy stove that looks like it is out of the 1940's. We used some paint and some natural pine for the cabinets, some wood and some soapstone for counters. We opened part of the wall into the family room to allow in more light. Between the two rooms we removed and reinstalled the old wainscotting under the breakfast bar. We created new wainscotting in the same style for the backsplashes and the raised cabinet beside the stove. Here are some thumbnails from our kitchen, click on them to see enlargements:

@taylj8 .glad to be of help--I completely understand the overwhelming feeling of taking on a project! You've got a great canvas to work with! Some lessons I've learned: Get your artificial lighting figured out. Light affects everything! Keep it consistent temperature-wise (Kelvins) and imagine how you'd like to light the space for all the different things you'd be doing within the space. For your professional bids I would ask for their portfolios to see what they've done in the past so you feel confident of their abilities. Ask the pro you end up choosing to prepare physical samples so that you can use them for other all other selections such as paint (which you may want to hold off on until you're more expensive and permanent selections are made because you don't want to have to work around paint colors even if it's white due to there being 53+ shades of white). I'm also noticing a bluish-violet tinge of the wall color. This may be actually increasing your perception of the orange in the current wood finish. Live with the samples prior to starting work--these are your keys to future choices and will help make decisions a lot easier because everything will be based on them vs. outside factors. They will easily whittle down the seemingly unlimited choices and decisions out in the world of options. See what the pros end up using as far as products go and study their method. If you feel confident to duplicate their method in a smaller, more manageable space, DIY it and utilize the saved funds on a splurge or somewhere else in the project as a reward. Never rush or be rushed!

 Such a beautiful ranch! That brown stain on the current porch overhang would look gorgeous on the rest of the house, including the foundation. I love the idea of dark flat forest green trim on windows and doors. Also agree that fewer but bigger rustic posts, with those diagonal y pieces at the top, would balance the roof and give the porch a solid, welcoming feel. If there are some big conical evergreens native to your area, consider planting a couple in the yard. Their lines would echo the roofline, and reach for the sky, further connecting the house to the land. And that would also work well with the green trim. Reuse that pile of boulders strategically, integrating them with some plantings in front of the porch and a pathway from the parking area to the porch. Over the years, you could change up the front door color with a lighter green in the same family, or a lighter brown,  a sage green, or even a mustard color if you are feeling bold. Here's my very rough scribbles to show what I mean. Also put a bigger stoop on that side door if you plan to use it,  and a bit of gravel or stepping stones to unobtrusively connect it to the front porch as well.