kellienoelle - EVERY house is a series of compromises!!! If the worst thing you have to face are a few updates the previous owners did that are not really in sync with the vintage of the house or your personal dream house, you're doing just fine!!! And really and truly - it's a great house. You know that or you wouldn't have jumped on it the way you did. Yes we have plans to move - major move from Chicago suburb to the Asheville, NC area.- not retirement but lifestyle change. We keep adjusting the timeline for various reasons mostly family related, but it's in my head all the time and I'm picking away at things we will need to do prior to listing. My DH wants to build - he does remodeling/additions/repair. I want no part of building and far prefer altering an existing house. We'll see ;-) I took pictures and made an album at Photobucket figuring that's the easiest for you and won't clog up this thread with a million pics. But they are updating that website and I couldn't get things organized and explained for you the way I wanted so it's kind of a mash-up. Hopefully it will make some sense. Our house is a little newer than yours but very similar. We put a large addition on 2 years after moving and recreated the same trim and detail so it wouldn't feel like an addition. When you start looking at doors you'll notice that old doors have much wider stiles and rails - the look and feel more substantial than the doors you pull off the rack at Home Depot. It's details of that nature that makes the difference in how you feel in the house - subtle, but the overall effect is huge. I hunted for a long time for our light fixtures - one here, one there - and we had bare bulbs hanging for a LONG time!! I'd stumble on them in odd little shops, yard sales, farm sales and if they spoke to me I'd buy them and figure out where to use them later. Same with glass door knobs - we have several different kinds as you'll see. A few were original to the house but most had been changed and since we added on we had a lot more doors too deal with anyway. They will be hard to leave behind, trust me, but I'll hunt them out again if we get an old house. Let me know if there's something specific you'd like to see or have a question. Here is a link that might be useful: House Detail pics

Just in response to Caryscott- I think you may be on to something, but so many times the new kitchens are large and high end...and I agree that's hard to reconcile with charming. Charming is usually not huge (although it can be a big space with diffent functions) but it wouldn't be all sleek cabinetry and huge island...and by definition, industrial restaurant/style kitchens are not charming. They're industrial, the opposite of hand made and hand crafted, which I think is a big part of charming. I also think charming has some vintage pieces or usable antiques (stress on usable) and fabrics, plants, and a little bit of clutter. It's important that people can tell someone actually lives there and you should see a bit of their personality, by what they feel is important enough to display. So many of these high end kitchens are beautiful, but they don't look lived in. Everything is very funtional and has a specific storage space, often behind doors (sometimes even the microwave is hidden behind doors). A charming kitchen is functional, but you can see the function. Instead of form over fuction, I would say it's form as function. Open shelves or glass uppers show you where the dishes are, so you can get your own glass of water. You often see pans hanging above the range or over a small island, so helping with cooking or cutting up veggies/salad stuff is easy. Appliances are rarely hidden or covered with cabinetry...they're there to be used and add to the function. Where charming turns some people off (IMHO) is when the clutter starts to become form, over funtion. Dishes that are displayed should be used, cutting and work surfaces should be open and easily accessed (not piled with clutter) appliances should be functional, not decorative...so a wood stove or old gas stove should still be working. Floors, countertops, backsplash and cabinets should be durable and easy to clean. It's hard to imagine a high maintenance finish, in a truly charming kitchen. Yes, you might have a piece of marble for rolling out dough, but it's going to be etched and that's need to be okay. Charming isn't for everyone...and it doesn't always work in a great room space. Part of the appeal is that it's a working kitchen and while you might have an island, table, cozy seating area (or maybe all of the above) it needs to first and foremost be a kitchen. If your idea of the perfect kitchen is a lovely space that hides all of its funtion and ends up looking more like a corner bar in your large living room...that's also a great look, but I don't know that I would call it charming...maybe stylish or modern, but not charming :)

These are some great ideas ... to be clear, I can paint the cabinets no problem (have experience and appropriate equipment), but I have resisted over the past couple of years because we had higher priority things to get done in the house. We're getting past those now, so have time to go back and tweek. I like idea of crown on the uppers. Removing the cab over the sink is problematic ...it has an LED under it that is really important to the sink function ... will have to look and see if I can pull it, route the wiring into the ceiling and then back down into another dangly fixture that could match whatever ends up being over the island? Funny thing ... taking photos and then studying them actually helps ME! The fan is ugly ... but it is a wonderful thing ...maybe paint it white to match ceiling? (we did this to two fans in this house and two in another ...makes them sort of disappear). We replaced two in another house with dark brown ones to hook up with the dark woodwork ... it looks good, too. We'll look at replacing the glass on the two dangly lights ...it does need some contrast from the white ... since they don't do much, anyway, perhaps industrial stainless, dark gray, red or black?

So it is unrealistic to know what you are paying before you basically agree to buy with someone? I have an estimate right now for my exact layout from one place, but he doesn't seem to want to give me a quote for another line, other than it would be 20% more. Which is fine, I can do the math myself (about $8,600 for Medallion Gold), just as long as it really is close to 20%. The thing is, I know I don't want to keep things exactly as they are. I need mostly drawers rather than regular cabinet bases, which I know is more expensive. The current oven and microwave are also currently smaller than anything on the market, so I would need to make space for regular sized ones, either by extending the cooktop peninsula next to them or moving the refrigerator on the other side of them to the other wall. Either way, this is adding expenses that probably have not been accounted for in this bid. Sometimes he seems super easygoing and other times I feel like I am bothering him when I ask questions (which may be just different communication styles as well). I do understand his time is valuable, and I don't want to waste it, but he never asked for any kind of fee or retainer for work and I can't just sign on the dotted line when I don't know if there are thousands of dollars of changes needing to be made. I did call another place because they have Diamond Cabinetry, which I have also heard is a good midlevel brand, and since I was feeling a bit uncomfortable with how the interaction was going with the guy at the other place. They have been so friendly and patient every time I have had any interaction with them. They also came out and measured and are even going to do a couple different designs and go over them with me. When they gave me a ballpark though, it was 10-15k, which I don't think is unreasonable, just after hearing under 9k, 15k is tough, especially considering this reno was not planned and we have a lot of other expenses right now, so 6k does make a difference. That 9k might be a big illusion though, since I think he was basing it on what is in place currently, but I'm not sure because I have gotten to the point where I am worried I am asking him too many questions. For a big budget, a 2-5k difference might not really matter, but for us right now it does.