I LOVE your house and II would not touch that mortar - it goes nicely with the aged stone look. I would stay in the brown family for roof color to compliment the aged stone look - not a color that is bright or harsh or crisp. The door is too "fancy" for the house and all the trim is too "crisp" white...look in the cream/taupe/earth-tone family. Not navy or black. Shrubs need to go - think subtle English countryside landscaping. I also agree on clapboard, not stucco, for your addition. I can see ivy climbing the walls - but won't suggest that as you can never get rid of it and it is not good for your stone. Looking forward to your transformation.

I had two different estimators here - carpeting is on plain plywood subfloor. To install anything other than carpeting means removing the toilet, installing a more robust subfloor/durock etc, then putting down tile/LVT/LVP etc. The cost of the tile or vinyl is negligible - the cost of the labor per bathroom is the expense. I'm sorry but this one shouldn't be up for discussion as anyone coming into the house will take one look at carpet in the bathroom, make a face and leave. Sheet vinyl would be a better choice even. BAD idea to 'test the market' then 'adjust'. You are only *fresh* once. Take advantage of it. Otherwise the 'adjusting' you will do will be to lower your price. Exactly. If your agent is telling you that, then she's not as good as you believe her to be. You don't test the market because in the long run if you have it priced too high, it will sit longer on the market, people will wonder what's wrong with it when the price drops and then you'll wind up most likely with LESS than if you had priced it right the first time. SEND sweet mojo that this couple who is enchanted makes an offer on our house! Boy that would be great if that happens. Sending good vibes!

So much fabulous feedback - THANK YOU!! @jhmarie - I think you are right about the white oak floors - they are very hard and don't really scratch. I'm going to consider quartersawn oak now... and you are definitely correct about a drab grey/brown combo. We are leaning towards the greige colors for the floors and backsplash. A cold hard grey won't really fit in with the rest of the house. @olmama - your kitchen looks fabulous and it really does remind me of ours. The ceilings are almost identical. @nosoccermom - I like the colors, but the shape is too modern. I think something between rustic and farm fits us better. I went to the website and saw those cabinets are oak... wow I had no idea oak could looks that good. lol. :) @Olychick - yeah I'm starting to have second thoughts about the knotty alder. with so many knots already, it might be too much "clutter" for such a small space. Out kitchen is not really that big - it just feels like it because of the open ceiling and the sun room with the windows makes it feel huge. @herbflavor - Thanks for the input on the flooring - I'm to the tile store this weekend to look at tiles like the ones mentioned above. @OneRidgeOff - Holy smokes!! I love your granite and backsplash. My partner also loves blues like that. He is going to flip when he sees your kitchen pictures. I'm so excited to pick our granite. :) @SJ McCarthy - you are 100% correct that we are going to struggle until we update the windows. the rest of the house was updated since building, but they did not update the sunroom, probably because of the cost. Those windows are HUGE. @Filipe Agostinho - I see what you are saying about contract - I'm going to focus on making sure there is contrast between the floors/backsplash/countertop and cabinets. This is a huge help. Ok, so to recap - definitely going to focus on greige floors, and will look at quartersawn oak, since it will match the trim in the rest of the house, and modern shaped cabinets will still update it, without having to update the rest of the house. You all are awesome. Thank you so much. :)

Until you go in to apply for the position, they tell you the pay is commission based. So if you're not also a 'silver tongued' salesman, your pay is likely at best 30K a year or less and at risk of being let go. These kinds of ads are nothing new Mike. I've seen them for 20 years. They talk a good game... but it's just a game like everything else. You're a home owner Mike. How could you know? Why is a position like this commission based? because techs lie, ride the clock... meanwhile the company goes broke, due to non-productivity --- or giving services away. (Some companies will employ these measures to get their foot in your door. You know we won't charge you for advice sort of thing... but their advice is heavily stacked in their favor. It has to be... they are paying 100's of thousands of dollars to make high cost TV ads, not to mention other forms of ads.) The position is a good secure position that isn't going away... but if you think it's easy as just 'showing up' to make $75-100K a year... you're beyond clueless. There are more techs that try this field and quit, than there are techs that succeed and become anything remotely what I wake up to every morning. Why do you think there are so many ads looking for people. Hint *high turn over, churn mill*. Remember I've been doing this for 26 years... 13 of those years I worked for other companies. This isn't meant to discourage a younger generation from doing this... but there is no such thing as an 'easy profession' to make a livable wage. This job is hard, hard, hard. People will call you rip off artist, lying cheating con man, tell you the company you work for cheated them when the system fails. You will work in the weather... hot, cold, mild, windy, rainy, thunderstorms. You will craw under homes in rat infested dumps, climb thru attics maybe if you're fortunate you won't plummet to serious injury up to and including death by being impaled by something. You will sit in a truck for many hours. Get used to it because you will more or less live in that truck. You will work from sun-up to sun down and sometimes beyond that. Some days you'll will be busy, making good money. When the calls come at a trickle you'll still be sitting in that truck... the pay won't be as good then. It's a seasonal business any way you slice it. There will be the calls you spend hours on, but because you're running a 'free estimate bid' you won't make nothing on those that you don't sell. Do too many of those and the company will cut you loose. Why would this company put you in a truck and keep you there if you don't perform like they think you should? There will be those employees who wanting to get a leg up, go and snitch on you. There will be favorites.. those who get to go home early while you continue to work. You're nearly to your front door... then another call comes in. You're on call... forget your plans. On that call you find out that another clueless idiot that snitched on you had been out on this call earlier didn't perform the repair right and the condensate pan is over flowing dripping into yet another pan from another unit that is also backing up flooding the home. What's all this you ask: It's what the ad doesn't say. If they told you all that... there would be far less people who stick their neck out. Remember, I've lived it... 26 years is a LONG TIME. I don't run a 'churn mill' -- if that's what you want, good luck. The Ray Austin way is only achieved by using Ray Austin. The few, the happy, the service when you need it. (I can't service everyone, nor do I try.) I service the Katy, Texas area