Jenswrens, I think I just replied to your post at Kitchens about maple versus cherry cabinets. Well, come to my house for the kitchen tour and see my cherry cabinets first hand!! The Twin Cities Bungalow Club holds a home tour every year. It features kitchens this year, so you are in luck!! The tour is Saturday May 14th from 10 am to 5 pm. There are 6 homes on the tour, four in Mpls and two in St. Paul (including mine). Start the tour at 4356 41st Ave. S. in Minneapolis (corner of 41st Ave. S. and 44 Street E.) where you will get a map and description to all the other houses. For more info, you can visit the TCBC website at www.bungalowclub.org. It is a very active club with great events.

From what you've said, I'm guessing the best solution for you is to figure out what is really bugging you, and address that with the least possible work for the short term. Either match the grubby patches with the creamy colour, or paint it all so it matches the addition. You are in the busiest years of your life! You'll have more time later. Later, figure out what you want to do in the long term. Do it later. The only thing you want to avoid now is doing anything irreversible - like removing and discarding all the old moulding. Remove by all means, if that's what it takes to keep you sane, but don't discard! If your moulding has a nice profile, it is worth stripping even if you are going to repaint. Even if it is flat board, it's probably lovely old-growth wood, so give a future owner a chance even if you don't want to see it. You cannot strip "some" of the paint - it's pretty much all or nothing. But there is nothing forcing you to accept wood frames if you strip. Just clear-coat or shellac before you put more paint on, so a future owner can go that direction if desired. I have been living for 20 years with just the kind of paint you describe. Globby, put over unsanded filler, and drippy. Unbelievable that anyone could paint like this! It's on doors, moulding, and wainscoting. Actually we removed a lot of the moulding, but not all, and have done a lot of stripping. So I had some un-framed doors and windows for a long time, but they are almost all done. We will eventually strip more (kids are now grown), and probably repaint some of it. There is so much to do if you have an old house while the kids are small, we have always done whatever bugs us the most, and the rest, you just promise yourself you'll do it someday. What I have found the worst is living with half finished jobs - finished or unfinished is almost easier, though of course you have to get through the transition. And you know, someday comes before you know it. Enjoy the kids, put the time into them! One thing I have discovered is that painting over the drips and globs and ridges softens the old paint, so for about a day or two after your paint dries, you can relatively easily cut, with a utility knife, the worst offenders. That's been a lifesaver upstairs, where the attic is all beadboard that I am NEVER going to strip. I'm assuming I'm dealing with both latex and oil layers when this happens, so I hope it works for you. Karin L

One thing you can do with old photos is to scan them at the highest resolution that you can. Then begin blowing up the scan, and looking into the detail of the photo. You will be very surprised what you begin to see. I did this with some of the old old family photos taken back in the early 1900s. Blowing them up and peeking at things like the scuff marks on the shoes of the children, the detailing on the home made dresses, a barb wire fence between the yard and a corn field, which had corn ears fully grown on it, so it had to be late in the year. And most of all, I could see the expression in the eyes of my grandmother. But you might see the detailing of the boards on the porch, the way the steps were built and from what, and were they painted or not. Any flower beds and what was in them. Many of the homes in my old pictures were not painted, but were of rough lumber sometimes board and batten. But the young couple were invariably standing proudly in front of their home, probably newly built or expanded. Hard working people in homemade dresses and overalls and brogan shoes. It was as close to Southern American Gothic as you can get. Another one I loved was of my great grandmother Sophia taken in the hog pen with this huge hog which she was feeding. Going on the assumption that they had pictures taken of important things or events, I decided this was important because she was proud to be able to feed such a fine hog which would be slaughtered and feel her family well during the winter. Plus, she loved animals and took good care of them. I guess I inherited that love from her.

Linda - Sounds like a fort! Both you and Casey might have something there about the boiler and coal rooms. Although the basement has been completely redone, the concrete (seen from inside two closets) could have possibly been an area of the like. Makes sense! There were some pipes going up into the concrete. I did not take the time to check out what the pipes connected to. Seems to me that we looked at a home last year that had a "fireproof" ceiling in the basement where the still working boiler stood. I remember thinking that the basement would be hard to finish out because of that ceiling. It was not flat. The basement room really wasn't large enough to do anything with it. In this current home, the basement is huge! Casey - The servants bedrooms and bath are over the existing kitchen. I do hope the bedroom floors are not concrete should we decided to make the move. Linda - Thankfully, the kitchen has been redone with new plumbing and electrical. It's a rather large kitchen for the era of the home. There is also a pour concrete terrace. What I don't understand is that there are 4 chimneys, but only one fireplace. The chimneys look as though they are within the house and not running up an outside wall. There are no "bump outs" inside the house to indicate a fireplace or chimney was covered up or once there. I guess the others were used for coal or boilers? Perhaps ducts run through the walls???