the contract just talks about the depost for the cabinets and then the 50% due upon receipt of the cabinets. I've paid the KD her fee.. (and she really deserves it.. she really did a lot of work for us and came up with some excellent solutions for us). Mostly it's the deposit for the cabinets... which hasn't been sent to the cabinet company yet.. the order was pending my approval for the door... which I do not want to approve. what i'd like to do is get my money back and then give the KD a bit extra (she said initially that if we did not get the cabinets through her, after the designs were done, she'd charge an hourly rate for consultation, changes, etc.. she's spent a ton of time on us and her initial fee was low.. so, I thought I'd calculate the 'extra' hours, figure out what else we owe her, and then get the rest of the refund.. at that point I'd go to Crown Point, which was our orignal plan until we got spooked by ordering out of town.

I'm going to point out a couple of considerations about that layout. They are just in case you haven't thought about it. I'm sure you have as its just about the layout you have now. a. Using the cooktop will sometimes involve asking the person at the sink to move. (Anytime those drawers under the cooktop are opened). b. Using cabinet one will sometimes involve asking the person at the cooktop to move. c. Its going to be harder to get into the corner uppers with a modern hood that sticks out further - perhaps even more than today because the corner upper cabinets look like they might be smaller. d. Be careful about leaving allowance for fillers in the corners and up against a wall - particularly when using frameless cabinets. In a corner, the filler on both sides needs to be the depth of the door AND the depth of the handle plus a tiny bit - so that the cabinets on both sides can open properly. Up against a wall, you should allow for a 3/4" piece of starter molding - except that you may need more to clear your door casing. e. Be careful about wall cabinets with wide doors that open over counters and the amount that the hinge allows the door to open. Looking at the wall cabinet door arrangement over the dishwasher - it looks like you've skipped the first cabinet and put dishes into the second cabinet. You may want to rethink that. You could get brained by the cabinet door or left in the slightly odd situation where the door doesn't open wide enough to be able to pick something out of the dishwasher and put it away without first putting it on the counter to avoid crashing it into the counter. Or you have to walk around the open dw door to put stuff away. This is just my personal opinion, but I would move the dw back over to the left and put the main dish storage on the first cabinet to the right. f. Same wall cabinets - opening the center cabinet prevents both other cabinet doors from opening - certainly not the end of the world or anything.

I think your are on the right track going to single door and adding a window. I think a trellis would look good depending on design of course. I am not a fan of obscured(maybe reeded or hammered?) glass but you may be limited on choices depending on the window company, but you can always have your own custom glazing installed. You could maybe do a cottage/oriel style double-hung window with either sash larger than the other.May replace the front garage door with something to jazz up the front of the house? Maybe a couple of dormers in front as well or maybe some trusses on the garage that overhang the sidewalk.I can't stop staring at the skylight either,it's like a big pimple but the trusses wold cover that.

If it was my house this is what I would do. I would remove the shutters, paint the siding, trim and pergola in a dark gray to make the stone stand out. I would also paint the window frames in black and install a wood front door to match the garage door. In your photo we can't see a sconce nor house numbers so I would install nice black large ones. I don't know what the chimney is made of, looks perhaps like bricks so I would paint that in a colour to match the stone. The landscaping can also be improved for more curb appeal.