Well, I've been over to kitchens and got a bit of advice. A couple people are urging me to knock down the wall between the kitchen and DR and put in an island, but I suspect you Old House people would scream in agony over that one. :-) Based on their input and yours, I'm now thinking along these lines: -Keep the chimney. That'll avoid having to spend on a new furnace and water heater for now. They're perfectly functional, just not maximally efficient. -Surgically remove the sink cabinet but leave the others in that plane. Slide a range in there (assuming it's a 30" opening; didn't measure). Use that exercise to see if the boxes can be removed from the wall. They do have backs on them, so I'm not sure it's a lost cause. -Move the doorways to the center of the room (no one has yet given me a good reason not to other than it's a lot of work) -If we can cleanly remove them, take down the cabinets over the existing range spot and relocate to the window wall. -Buy new base cabinets for along the window wall -Build new wall cabinets to fill in the rest of the window wall, matching/mirroring the relocated ones. -Add shaker trim to the old doors and maybe drawers. I've found some reasonably priced unfinished RTA cabinets at kitchencabinetdepot.com. I'll carefully prep the existing and paint the whole shabang in some creamy white color. FWIW, I priced out all new cabinets at Lowe's and they came to about $9K, $1500 of which was trim. The same set of cabinets from KCD (no trim) is $3500. So theoretically, with some elbow grease and used appliances, I might be able to pull off the kitchen for $5K, even with all new cabinets. But I'm determined to meet the challenge and be as tightwad as possible on this, so I'm going to try for maximum re-use.

Material+Time+Labor Only you can know what you need and how much it will cost, how much time it will take you and what is your time worth, what is your overhead, and what your profit margin is. If you cannot figure out a price, this job is not for you... Because doing a job based on someone's price you will lose your pants and most likely you will end up screwing your customer, seen that happen too many times. Some would come in, and tell the customer they will beat anyone's price to get a foot in the door, and when they start the job they will run short and when that happens, they will start cut corners, ask for more money and if they don't get it, they will abandon the job and when that happens, consumer is screwed because they cannot find anyone else to finish a job started by someone else. So don't put yourself in this situation. Good luck

" Because all you non pros say it's ok, then that must mean it's ok? As opposed to listening to the Pros on this forum or doing your own research by asking in the appliance forum?" Wait, what makes someone a non pro vs one of the "Pros on this forum" and is that different from having PRO under your picture? Only one person with PRO under their picture has answered here. It is actually their "pros" telling them it is OK. Are you saying that "non pros" giving their subjective opinion is somehow invalid? Are you saying if you are a "Pro on this forum", whatever that means, your word is infallible? I think no matter who you profess to be, you have to make a case for what you are saying. If I were doing this now, I would have a few questions myself. It's a lot of money especially if you have to install makeup air. There are a lot of ways to calculate how much ventilation is needed but how are these ways and numbers validated? I think this is the thread mentioned above that has the comments by kaseki(no PRO under his picture). He references certain people that have worked in this field. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5161173/hood-faq#n=21 "Any ventilation hood over 400 CFM requires MUA. Your locally adopted amendments to code can be stricter, but not more lenient." Some codes, ours in particular, call for it at 600 CFM, so you really have to see if it is required in your location and what the requirements are. This is our code. Not everyone needs the motorized version. I don't think makeup air was required when I put my fan in, at least none of the inspectors said anything. I have not had any issues anywhere or blow back from the wood stove. We have a lot of open areas in our house. I do think I have naturally supplied makeup air with a gravity damper. ;-)) It is also close to the furnace. We went to a restaurant recently with no makeup air and a giant hood. I could not pull the door open, until my husband pulled on it too and we broke the suction. Not good!

It sounds as if you are prudent financially and also if you are building in a coastal SoCal area, it's hard to "overbuild" - the most likely scenario is that people will tear down when a house is sold if it is small/older configuration in a desirable neighborhood. I'm contrarian - If you have the extra $50,000 - aren't borrowing for it and have your other savings, get exactly what you want - within reason. Of course, some of YOUR priorities wouldn't be my priorities as I am happy with my Bosch Benchmark level appliances - some might call those high end but in certain neighborhoods, they would be considered entry level. I had an expensive built ins for my den/office because I had very specific aesthetic and functional needs. I installed a room divider with a stripper pole television set so that I can twirl the television around so I can view it from both the office/den and the formal living area - and it's in a closed cabinet so I don't have to look at the front or back of a television. I also installed rollout cabinet for my printer; a drop in area for my external hard drives by my desk and other stuff that was specific to my needs. I could afford it and it enhances my life. I'm not worried about growing tired of the style - I lived with less functional Mission style bookcases for years without growing tired of the style so I'm pretty certain that I am not gong to regret the decision from a style point of view. I have hot feet so heated floors would be a negative LOL but different strokes. If I had cold feet, I would certainly spend the money to be comfortable. I splurged to enhance my comfort on other aspects of my bathroom and I don't regret that decision at all. Love my Toto washlet :-). I splurged on motorized shades and every day when I reach for my iPhone and lower the shades in the morning and raise them again later when the sun has stopped I am grateful for the splurge. While I might not get exotic wood flooring at $50 a square foot, I would not forego wood flooring (or the flooring of my choice) in order to save money. As others have posted, anything that can't be easily changed out down the road only makes sense to do when one is remodeling because it is exponentially more expensive and difficult to do down the road. Also - even though you are planning to rent it out, not all rentals - especially in higher end neighborhoods - use lower cost/down market finishes. I live in a high rise condo and those units which have upscale fixtures command higher rentals because the market can support it.