You certainly won't be needing your display cabinet in the new house. If you have lots of stuff to store but not to display, you might simply frost the glass doors to hide what's inside. Or do you have enough books to fill it up? The smaller one could be turned into a dry bar, or you could add a wine fridge underneath and do a wine bar. If you don't imbibe but love coffee, make it a coffee bar. Personally, I would replace the diagonal wood with drywall and go ahead with flooring. I see that same wood is installed behind the cabinets, so you could salvage some of it to close off the upper openings entirely, and just let that wall feature a bit of the wood since you love it. I hope you plan to remove the ugly valance over the sliders. Look for a big area rug that both of your leggy sofas can sit entirely on for good grounding. Only 12-18" of flooring has to show around the perimeter if you want to go really big with a colorful, patterned rug, or you could just have broadloom bound as well.

You've got shakes and brick on the front and, what appears to be, vinyl along the side. Was the house built like this in the 1980's? If so, then just paint it all one color. Or remove the front brick and shingle and re-side. Or just re-side the whole thing in fiberboard if your budget allows. If you want to play with the roofline, then that's going to require some input from a professional (like an architect). I think painting it all one color is the answer. However, I am reading a book on Bungalows and Craftsman homes and they painted the upper and lower floors different colors specifically to make the homes appear lower and wider. So maybe that's an option--but you don't have a visual divider between the 2 floors on the sides so, again, I would just go with all one color. You don't need to make it look less like a dutch colonial, you just need it to look like the prettiest Dutch Colonial. You need nice landscaping.

@ SapphireStitch While it would be nice to wave a magic wand with an unlimited checkbook - I don't have that. I do have access to some money (got a HELOC). If some of the changes need to be done in stages and can be done effectively - we can do that, because the more money I have to pull upfront from the HELOC, the more I'll end up paying in interest. (yuck). I'm also not averse to acting as my own general contractor/project manager, if needed; I've done that before (successfully) But I'd rather not have to overall manage the project, just because my current employment is a boatload more demanding than my previous employment. The nice thing is that we don't have a defined deadline where "this must be done by" - no one is getting married, boatloads of relatives aren't coming to visit, etc. However, the kitchen as it currently stands is a source of daily irritation. We're getting to the point that if anyone is already in the kitchen, we try to avoid going in there until that person has left the kitchen. Tempers flare....we've got my boyfriend (who was envisioning a quiet, child-free retirement), my teenager (while she's not as much of a drama queen as some teens - she's just starting the teenage years, LOL), and me - frustrated as the primary food purchaser, preparer, organizer, clean-up person. And if my boyfriend happens to suddenly realize his blood sugar has dropped - get the hell out of the way in the kitchen. He's not very good at listening to his body - he literally passed out one time when his blood sugar dropped too low - he dashed into the kitchen, grabbed a glucerna and the last thing he remembered was opening it up - but he woke up on the floor sitting in a puddle of the stuff. (I wasn't home at the time). When either I or my teen are in the kitchen and if boyfriend does the mad dash into the kitchen - we pretty much have to drop what we are doing so he can grab something and while he stands there and he starts shoveling whatever down his throat. And since the space is so tight - it can mean leaving stuff cooking on the stove, etc. One time he dashed in, grabbed a breakfast sandwich out of the refrigerator, yanked what was already cooking in the microwave out, and threw his sandwich in. Anyhow, I digress. I know that some of the things we want are going to be big-ticket items - new cabinets, granite or quartzite countertops, slide-in induction stove. That's why I'm also looking for cost-efficient plans, such as instead of moving the sink to the middle of the room, let's keep it on the same wall and just shorten the distance from the hot water heater to the new sink location. Let's not blow out any of the exterior walls, and we can keep the current windows, dishwasher, and refrigerator. If replacing the 10'x13' current laminate would be cheapest to match new hardwood to the existing hardwood, rather than ripping it all out and putting tile down in a 20'x13' space, I'm fine keeping hardwood. If a nice, medium-stain maple cabinet is cheaper than white painted cabinets, I'm find with the the stained version... I prefer it, personally. Rather than a huge pantry cabinet, if building a pantry closet with adjustable shelves is cheaper, I'm fine with that (plus with all the small appliances and bulk-purchases from Costco and BJ's - I think it would suit our storage needs better). If getting an island fits the layout, but is out of reach - I'm fine holding off on installing island cabinets and countertop and using a kitchen table in the meantime. And because we don't have a "get it done by" date... once I have a really solid design/layout... I have the time to shop different cabinet lines and stoves, wait for sales and then to be ready to capitalize on hopefully a decent deal. I don't know if it's true, but I did see some articles that indicate the best time to shop for kitchen cabinets is November to early January.

We would like to remodel the whole house room by room as we enjoy doing most of the work ourselves. Refinishing the wood floors is on my list after my toddler exits the hell on wheels stage. I don't believe the tile is under the kitchen cabinets, I definitely want to change the kitchen layout. The roof, living room windows, and kitchen appliances are damaged and need replaced this year. I also need to replace all the bathroom sinks because they are not kid friendly. I'm considering putting in more substantial baseboards as the current ones seem very cheap compared to the crown. I agree with updating all the lighting and adding updates through furniture and decor for now. Thank you all for the advice! It helps to have outside opinions.