Nothing yet! We are still waiting for the insurance settlement to get things started. Our kitchen was ordered back in April and is expected to be delivered by June 9th. Our contractor is scheduled for the week of June 12th. But the reconstruction and repair of our walls, moldings, floors, etc, has not started yet and may force us to delay the kitchen install. We were told that the work may start this coming Monday which would be great, as that would keep us on schedule. I am trying to be hopeful. I now have everythingvelse picked out except the backsplash. My Kitchen floor will be grouted Alterna vinyl in Sistine White. The ajacent dining room floor will be Mirage Maple Sonora hardwood... and I already shared the Basset dining table which has been ordered. I just can't wait to get back home, especially to all my newly designed rooms!

ok,,so lets start w/the kitchen. well, paint colors actually. it's ok to do different colors in other rooms,,,if you can see both rooms, slightly, then either do the same or do similar coordinating tones. The rest of the advice is if you plan on keeping what's there. If you're going to rip it out and get a new kitchen in a year, then live w/it if you can. If this is all you can do for many years, then see if the changes, below, are something you can do. if you plan on keeping all of that wood trim (if it was me, I'd prob paint every thing except the beams on the ceiling, and maybe the trim going up the staircase. In the kitchen you have so many dark and heavy elements, I feel you need to lighten it up. I can live w/the black tile, for now, but that brick? hell no. that has to get painted. You can paint the brick on the island, or, I'd cover it up w/panels/trim and paint it a soft charcoal to match the floor (or whatever color you like) Grab some thin wood or mdf panels from HD or lowes and cut to fit the 3 sides. Use construction adhesive to adhere to bricks (or get some masonry screws and screw them in) then get some 1x2 primed trim pieces and secure all around the borders..like so if you want a bit fancy, do the stiles along the back (above,,the vertical pieces) otherwise, just do it like pictured below. see how nice and clean looking it is? More ideas, search "trimming out kitchen island". you could try doing it in this color or if you feel like you want to have a painting party, do all of the cabinets in one, two or all four as they've outlined. This combo would look great w/your flooring. you kitchen ceiling needs to be skim coated and smooth out. or, have it retextured, primed and painted in a flat bright white. if you will be getting some retro fit recessed lights (Costco LED's,,,great price) then wait until the holes are done for those. Minimum of six 6" cans (8 would be better) , and two spots for pendants over the island. BTW, replacing the top on the island is a piece of cake. either check a granite fabricator yard for a remnant piece (you have a slender top so it should be easy to find) or look on craigslist for a remnant or even an entire island, or get an inexpensive butcher block and cut it yourself to fit. Whatever you get, leave an extra couple inches off the back end for an overhang. you could do a few more inches. The brick around your oven? paint it. white, black, gray, pick one. use a satin paint for that. clean and scrub that brick very well before you PRIME it (if using a dark paint, prime it with a gray primer. white for white,,,but don't skip the priming part) as for baseboards, if they're all small and short, pull them and replace w/these. Any questions? and yes, if you have the budget, call in a designer to help you out with what needs to be done, what should be done, etc.

Sigh....carpets hide HORRIBLE surfaces. And you've just discovered another place where this is true - the stairs. *In THEORY (ahem....too much work for most professionals - they would skip over to a surface and be done with it), you can TRIM OFF the slight overlap nose on every single tread to create a perfect 90 deg angle for each riser/tread combo. Then you need to STRIP AND SAND down the white material SITTING on the wood. Please check for lead based paint if the house was built before 1978. (If there is LEAD....move on to full removal/replacement of the tread/risers and leave well enough alone.) Once the wood is PERFECTLY CLEAN (and that means free of the chemical STRIPPER you used to remove the white ?paint?), you can then go ahead and putty all the little staple holes and cracks, etc. Then you sand again. This thing should be as smooth as an Ice Rink! Now you are ready to glue down the vinyl and the nosing. Shouldn't take more than a week. Or you source IDENTICAL thickness wood (pressure treated for this purpose) and remove and replace each and every riser and tread. Be aware....as soon as you TOUCH these things, you need to bring the whole thing up to code. Move ONE piece and you need the whole thing to code. And code means "Finishing Carpenter" level of mastery....and legal everything that goes with the title. If you do this, you might as well have them deal with the banister, etc and have everything moved up to code at the same time - no sense in waiting. If you simply resurface the treads with new carpet, you get away from all of this. If you can resurface using the original material, you should be able to keep everything else as-is. As soon as you remove stuff, and "rebuild" then you are getting into so serious code issues. Personally, I would throw down a stunning carpet that compliments the LVT and leave well enough alone. Make it look handsome by using a runner and then fixing/painting out the treads/risers in a pretty way....but it will involve a huge amount of work. Good luck. Check the paint for lead before you do anything else.

@tatts I came here for informal design help as I lay out my house. I think some people understand that and others do not seem to understand that. I understand that details about the house location and whether it is sewer or septic are lacking to some folks. I appreciate that me just moving things around in a house in a photo editor doesn't make any sense in the real world. Just because I post an idea or edited floor plan of something does not mean that is is going to be built that way or built at all. I have a site engineer, my GC, and a design & structural engineering firm. @roccouple Thanks for all of your thoughts! I really appreciate it! I'll think about axing the fireplace as it definitely eats some space. We like having a fireplace but we don't plan on using it often. We consider it our secondary heating source in case we lose power but maybe we could do something different. The garage is a little out of proportion of the house..We tried to find a balance. :-) you guessed correctly we have a couple of cars, 3 motorcycles, and will most likely end up with a couple of snowmobiles in a year or two. I have a decent amount of tools to go with the toys and we also have lots of outdoor gear. The garage is actually going to be pretty tight space-wise! @mnmamax3 Thanks! We were thinking about trying to put the W/D inside of cabinets or something similar so we could potentially close a cabinet or closet door. I'm also thinking we could add a door at the entry of the mudroom (from living room) just how @mama goose_gw zn6OH did in her most recent post.