Thank you, thank you for so many thoughtful posts. This is an international move for us, so I have been travelling to coordinate everything involved - I only had 2 weeks to find something and this house ticks a lot of boxes for us, so I will work with it. I completely agree with many of you on working with what is there and with the Scandi modern look - as I said in my first post "will try to go with a mix of nature (lots of wood), clean lines, bright colors (fern green, orange, yellow, turquoise), and some funky accents". My mom is Danish and I have inherited Danish modern dining table & chairs, buffet, turquoise pottery, floor lamp, etc. so that is our style in general. Our stuff is pretty modern, but not industrial, more nature-oriented mixed with lots of ethnic art and crafts bought on our travels. I'm definitely not trying to recreate a period-perfect kitchen or house - as palimpsest accurately guessed, this is a split entry colonial revival ranch so I'm really not sure there is any period-perfect style anyway. But we do like to respect the period features of our homes (most recently an 1882 Victorian and a 1910 Tudor revival, both 4 stories so we are really looking forward to one main level!) (And I really enjoyed reading all the commentary here on period issues.) Nonetheless, Tuscan-looking or even American traditional just isn't us, or the rest of the house, ergo my desire to create a feel in kitchen more in keeping generally with our eclectic stuff and the period of the house. Even though they are not my taste, there is no way I could take down almost new solid maple (cherry-stained) cabinets, as much as I might love IKEA. Anyone have any experience stripping stain off cabinets like these? I "might" think about that as I would like them better in a lighter wood tone, of course even better with a slab front but too many cabinets to contemplate that. I like the suggestion to take down and store the uppers next to the range and do a big tiled backsplash with a big stainless range hood. I like that idea aesthetically and practically since microwave vents are never powerful enough and uppers near a stovetop always wind up sticky and greasy. Will definitely look for a sleek stainless pull, maybe with a curve. I wonder if it possible to somehow cut off the mullions from the glass-fronted ones?? For the floors, I have loved the look and feel of cork previously so I'm inclined to go with that - it needs something less busy to minimize the busy-ness of the cabinet fronts. I don't know what to do for the counters? Formica or metal-trimmed aren't what I was contemplating. I think stone or tile will look too "Tuscan"/90s - whatever you want to call it - with the cherry cabinets. Already too much wood cabinet for butcher block. That leaves concrete, stainless or that manufactured quartz that looks quite uniform. Any thoughts? Thank you for all the links - I loved some of the tile patterns, but am concerned about busy-ness. I haven't had a chance to look at all the lighting links - thinking something clean lined, Scandi looking, not space-age. I'm also a bit stuck on backsplash and paint color. I love green and will be using it elsewhere in the house, but I have too many memories of dark green with cherry in 90s kitchens. Maybe another shade? I do love yellow and orange, which again will show up elsewhere in the house alot. I guess I am just really hung up on that cherry and what goes with it...

If you are not in love with the brick being exposed, I would consider painting the brick/garage door/walls/stucco below the siding a different shade of the same grey you choose for the siding. Have you tried uploading the photo to one of the paint sites to try out different schemes?

If you look up photos of midcentury modern gardens, you'll see their lines mimic the themes of the architecture: spare, clean lines, often angular, emphasis on the horizontal, not a lot of ornamentation. This is great because it also tends to be lower maintenance than more exuberantly planted gardens. You can get away with a lot of lawn and a few evergreens. You have nice trees in place. If you intend to replace shrubs, look for plants with definite structure or shape; almost sculptural in form. In the southwest, cacti and agaves provide this beautifully, but in your climate, think of suitable plants that have similar strong shape characteristics. Color should come from foliage if possible. Nice house! Enjoy!

I don't know where you are, but there is a neighborhood in north Framingham MA with maybe 100 of these identical houses all built in 1960-62. I just rebuilt one for my son. If you're close it might be worthwhile just driving around and looking at all the various choices people have made over the ensuing years, some good, some not so good. We kept the original cedar clapboards on his, there was nothing wrong with them. There had been a flat plywood panel between a couple of the upstairs windows which we took out during window replacement and just replaced with claps. It had rotted. The most important thing we did was to add 7" of rigid foam insulation on top of the roof-- it needed a new roof anyway. Those cathedral ceilings are a bear to both insulate and ventilate, so we went with a "hot roof". His heating bill dropped dramatically. There's a foam recycler in Framingham so it was also very cost effective. FWIW, because of the low slope we did a rubber roof.