Thank you for your comment. I hadn't thought about the noise of the doors. I'll look into that, and talk to other people who have garages under living space. I think the house, including the porches must be 50 ft long, and the garage will have to be small, maybe 25 by 25, or a little smaller. Not much living space but we will try to make it very nice. I'll get exact dimensions from dh and post them. I'm very eager to have a garage again. You really don't know what you've got til its gone. I am so enjoying the warmth from our pellet boiler, for example, on this minus 10 morning particularly after going without heat this fall in the transition! Kathy

If you're hoping to still love your kitchen and backsplash in 5-10 years (and you mention wanting to avoid too trendy stuff) , I would steer clear of "wow factor" accent tiles as well. Just my opinion. When I was choosing the tiles for some bathrooms 15 years ago, I was too overwhelmed by the choices to go for anything too exciting, which is lucky because I realize would have been tired of any of those choices 10 years later.

Paint the table legs and the chairs in the same off white as the cabinets. Stain the table top in a stain color of your choice. If you decide to paint the table top, paint it in a gray to match your subway tile.

Now that you have lived in the house for two years, you will have figured out if the kitchen foot print is usable. As soon as you start renovating this kitchen, you will be tempted to change things. Little things. Things that have bothered you for 2 years but could do nothing about. Once you do that, you have a new foot print. And then saving the boxes will be irrelevant or impossible (depending on how much of a change you make). Because change is inevitable, you will want to plan this out CAREFULLY. You will need to figure out your floor plan FIRST. Then you can look into whether or not it makes sense to keep old boxes vs. starting new for a full upgrade. If a bigger change is going to happen, you should get a certified Kitchen Designer on board. S/he will save you plenty of money with her/his designs and abilities. The KD will put together a package for you, including colour palette, flooring and counter top materials. Which you will direct the KD to order for you OR you can source yourself and then have installed. At which point, the flooring is decided WELL before the kitchen is touched. As you can see, you have a few more steps to go before you worry about flooring colour. To decide now, before you have a full idea of colour/materials would be putting the cart before the horse. Floors go in last (and can be chosen last). It is an important thing to work with. As tempted as you are to get rid of the red vinyl, you will be very upset to pay for a floor TWICE (which is often the case if flooring is changed before the kitchen is renovated). Because you have vinyl that is EVEN with the hardwood (same floor height) I would look at very thin product. It will prevent a large 'lip' from occurring through the doorways. But that's a decision that can come LATER. Right now you want to figure out the kitchen's footprint.