If you are replacing everything, yes, you are gutting it. I truly don't think anyone here means to rain on your parade, but gutting and renovating the 3 most expensive rooms in the house for a temporary solution is a financial disaster. You aren't even reselling so there's no chance you'll get any of it back, except for a few fixtures you can salvage for the new house, like faucets. I remember what it's like to have a house for the first time. Oh, the plans! But the reality is going to be rough. And expensive. And a remodel is a multi-month disaster zone. In addition to your chosen materials, you will also have to be prepared to spend quite a bit of money to maybe deal with bringing those rooms electrical and plumbing up to code, as the local inspector will likely require. You may have to upgrade the floor system for the tile. So... are you ready to spend $50k or more in just materials for a temporary upgrade? For $10k a year (assuming you have the cash and aren't going to be paying interest, too), you can get a whole mortgage payment in a lot of places. $50k could go a LONG way to toward new custom home. I suggest living in the house for a while before proceding. It will help you identify the things the NEED to be upgraded versus your wish list. If the rooms are basically fine but you just don't like them, paint is cheap. Pulling down floral wallpaper is painful but practically free. Replacing an existing floor with a floating floor is pretty cheap too if you rein in your material choices. You can refresh a room pretty cheaply without gutting it. Now, if the rooms are in some ways non-functional, consider more frugal solutions. For example, if the cabinet bodies are in good shape, they are probably better constructed than all except the most high end cabinets sold today, and they're free. Cabinets are *expensive!* One option is to paint the cabs and change the hardware; another is to paint the bodies and replace the doors. Hopefully this starts giving you some ideas for ways you can make the home more attractive and comfortable without pushing construction of your new home with the things you really want too far down the road.

I have a Ruvati, curved front stainless steel apron sink. LOVE it. One GIANT 36" bowl, it's super thick stainless, nice sharp corners (zero degree radius...I know some people find them hard to keep clean, but our sink is more decorative...the dishes go in the dishwasher, we have a laundry sink for the dirty stuff like clothes and plants, and really, it's for filling pots and washing veggies and such. Love it. Cutting board and strainer that mount right in, nice lining underneath to keep the sound down, and came with a strainer to keep us from banging the bottom of the sink. Just gorgeous; granite installers thought it was lovely. It's SO huge most people call it a small bathtub, and I'm pretty sure we'll bathe our children in it until they're 4 lol

Needs, You're doing fine!! You have consistency of taste which means you will have a cohesive design. My kitchen is way out there and much more likely to flop. Yours is going to be the serene, beautiful haven you've been striving for. Specifics: Either the wood floor or the tile will look fine, but I wouldn't do the variegated slate of the center floor picture. It's overwhelming to your other choices and will fight for attention. Very few people want the floor to be the star. Any of the colors in the slate floor would be fine, as would the beige, but keep the amount of color variation to what the beige floor on the bottom has and you'll be fine. The gray tones floor you like might be an excellent contrast. The backsplash colors you love are from the same family as the cabinet color. If you use wood, go darker or lighter. But I think the reason you're drawn to the gray is that you want that contrast. If you go for the kind of light countertops that are in your inspiration pictures, and get some subtle gray veining in them, they'll tie it all together. You'll have subtle contrast. Re the sink legs, I think you'll loose the drama if you angle them. It's the shadows created by the stiles and the incuts that give it the drama. Instead, you could round or clip the corner of the counter to save your hips, and leave the sharpness in the wood. You could do something creative with the pillow tiles. A single row of pillows in the colors as shown, in the Margie mosaic, as a stripe. Just the size and texture contrast, rather than a big color burst. Or pull out some of the mosaic tiles and replace them with pillows every so often as texture accents (this is my favorite plan). That way, the color similarity works with you instead of against you. Try putting an inset under the hood in your rendering and see how you like the look. I'm thinking that it might be better without it, but that's so personal. If you don't do an inset, you can always hang a plaque if it needs more decor, but if you put the medallion it had better be right. :) I don't think the oversized pillows will give you the look you're going for. There are all kinds of things people do with mosaics. If you're seeing them only without framed pieces it's because (a) they're often in truly modern kitchens and (b) because that's the look you like and therefore subconciously that's what you see and remember. You can have whatever you like. You have good repetition with the arch in the opening, under the hood and under the sink. Nice!

Just my opinion, but i don't understand the use of the material vertically that creates the wedge for the roofs. I know that treatment is similar to one of the pictures you liked, but in the picture you like, the material (or at least the same color) comes down the side in a contiguous line and also the other material on the side goes up into the roof line as rafters. The two are woven together. The most recent drawings above need the materials to embrace each other rather than sit on each other. My line of sight keeps starting and stopping with no help from the materials on where to go next. What if the entire front of the garage were cedar (Not the garage door, just the siding) and the sides (below the wedge) were grey and the cedar somehow came down the front of the part of the house on the left, either to the right of the windows (long narrow strip) or down the center between the windows, top to bottom? This suggestion might look awful when drawn. I don't have any drawing tools but i have a very vivid imagination. :-)