Palimpsest, thank you for your suggestions! My DH agrees with you about the cedar having character. I think you might have hit on my problem...after reading what you said, I think it's the huge contrast between the cedar and top wall color that I don't like. I'll have to consider some darker paint colors. If I get into town tomorrow, I might go by and pick up some paint samples.

"Overweight people know they need to exercise and usually the issue isn't access to a gym or cost." I've never been thin, and have been on a weight roller coaster through my life too, so I speak as a fellow traveler on the same road and I speak from experience. An overweight person who gets into a regular exercise routine won't remain overweight. Why do so many who could benefit from physical activity not do so? Not infrequently, it's the same as why they don't curb their eating habits- some combination of excuse making, a lack of personal discipline and/or inadequate motivation to stay on the wagon. The "I'm not athletic" excuse or "I'm self-conscious about my appearance" excuse are both that, excuses. Many don't care for classes, fair enough, but even strenuous walking for 30 minutes at a crack can be effective and requires no equipment or ability, Giving someone a membership takes away the excuse. I would check first, no sense spending money on something that would go unused. I question the true "wisdom" of two parent "health care professionals" who would encourage a young person to undergo thoracic surgery before first exhausting all possible efforts to make lifestyle changes. These surgeries allow the person to continue to overeat, hardly a solution to what is a lifetime problem.

I like the idea of a click-together floating vinyl tile in a bit of a checker pattern (tone on tone will look very handsome). It will keep the idea of your current flooring without actually going out and finding the same tile. Now, the technical side of this gets super interesting. The garage slab is DIFFERENT from the house slab. That means weird things will need to be done to get everything all ready for flooring. Shall we assume you have already leveled the garage floor with lots and lots and lots of new concrete? Excellent. Garage slabs are notorious for being dirty and "wet" (they allow HUGE amounts of moisture to move through them because they were never designed as living spaces. You are welcome to "float" a floor over the properly flattened slab. You will have to use a vapour barrier (I'm assuming you did not go whole hog and pay a SCHWACK of money to have the garage slab sealed and then flattened). The plastic vapour barriers are easy and low cost. And for that reason the click together variant would be your best bet. To get ANYTHING to "glue down" to an old garage slab is a huge technical slurry of problems that need expensive fixes. Because everything will be refloored in a few years (kitchen and pantry) I suggest you work with cheap and cheerful vinyl click tiles and keep going with the rest of the project. Please do not expect the LVT you use today to be available in 5 years from now. Traditionally these man-made floors only have a 24 month shelf life and then they are gone - never to be seen again.

It's been several days since I have posted, but that is because I have been giving these ideas much thought and have been talking to many professionals. What is your style? Do you have pics saved in an idea book of the look you are going for? This is an excellent question. I have looked at thousands of pictures of kitchens, and I haven't seen one that I can say, "That's exactly what I'm going for." So, to best answer your question, I'll show you the materials I'd like to use: ginger maple shaker fronts, white solid surface counter, "oak" LVP flooring, "painted" backsplash tile, and, if I keep some wall on both sides dividing the kitchen and dining room, I'd put the blue paint in the kitchen, yellow above the chair rail and the blue below in the dining room, and yellow on the walls of the rest of the main floor. So I'm not sure what you'd call it - transitional? Although I am very excited about being able to see and chat with people at the dining table while I am cleaning up in the kitchen, I think I do prefer having the more traditional mental division between kitchen and dining room with even just stub walls, and I do like the chair rail, if I am able to keep a bit of wall on the sides. Maybe that is the very definition of transitional? But practical matters of the small house and large family and a limited budget must be considered above my personal preferences. Although the contractor said "it doesn't cost that much to reduce the bulkhead," "it doesn't cost that much to move the sliding glass door," and "it doesn't cost that much to move pipes for the clean-up sink," all of it together - with the cabinet vendor that he uses - did cost much. He just came out this afternoon to do some measurements and discuss ways to reduce cost. This plan below is what I discussed with him: (1) Instead of messing with the bulkhead at all, keeping the wall only as far as the depth of the bulkhead (about 23"), but then have little to no wall on the other side. I can't have 23" on the other side for symmetry, because that wouldn't leave enough room to walk around people seated at the table, but I'm hoping that would look fine if we put cabinets up to the ceiling in the corner where the bulkhead is. He liked this idea a lot, because you just don't know what's in there. (BTW, I offered to pay him to open it up and see, but he won't open it up to have a look, or do any work at all, until a full contract is signed, first payment given, and cabinets ordered.) He did warn, however, that the cost of the cabinets and counter there will probably cost about the same as what he was including for reducing the bulkhead - so this solution does give more storage, it doesn't actually save any money. (2) Instead of a sliding glass door, put in a 30" standard door using the opening for the existing window in the dining room. A sliding door would be much better than a swinging door that hits those seated at the table, but it will be rare that we have people seated while others are going in and out, so I'll do it if it saves a lot of $$. He loved this idea, and said it would save me about $1000, but when I asked about what he'd recommend about the HVAC register that is currently on he floor in front of the window, he said it would be too costly to move it, and I should just leave it. It seems the register plate would get kicked up and rusted with traffic in and out, so I am not sure how good of a solution this is, after all. (3) I thought having a pantry closet with shelves and doors would save money over the cost of cabinets and countertop in that alcove, but he said the labor to put the shelves, doors and drywall would be more, so I'll go back to the cabinets. (4) Lose the second dishwasher. If I have a prep sink, it won't be so bad having one dishwasher with dishes piling up in the clean-up sink. As you can see below, I'm concerned about clearances and flow; losing the dishwasher will cut the cost some but also will give better clearances if I have to keep the 23" of wall below the bulkhead. I played with a few designs with two dishwashers and only one sink, but none of them seemed to work nearly as well as this one. Bbtrix - the range is centered in this design :-) and I'd love to know if you think if the stub wall that would stick out about 6" would still create a strange divide between the dishwasher and door, now that the dishwasher and door are much further away from each other. He liked this idea, but it still requires moving pipes, so let's hope that "doesn't cost that much." (5) I've fallen in love with the white solid surface countertops and the painted backsplash I pictured above, but I may just have to go to laminate countertops with the 4" backsplash if that saves thousands of dollars. He recommended granite over laminate or solid surface. Many granites are beautiful, but my countertops are primarily a work surface that functions better if it is light-colored and simple, and I find granite dark and very busy, and the few granites that are lighter in color seem to stain easily. I've heard laminates have come a long way, I just liked solid surface more because it's more reparable, doesn't have seams, the integrated sink, and I like the soft feel of it - maybe that's not worth the extra $$. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me and has been liking my comments - I warned in my subject line that this would be a challenge, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into!