Really cool house, and what a fun project! I took a chance and bought used off of Craigslist, but I got an insane deal. All Thermador and stainless, 30" double oven (convection on top), 36" gas cooktop, and hood for $700. For everything. Only a few years old (the woman was upgrading to Wolf and Subzero for her kitchen and just wanted the stuff gone). I was able to play with the appliances while they were still installed in her kitchen, and knew they worked. Buying from a family friend would give me similar reassurance. If you like the appliances, I think it's a smart move. The only one that gives me pause is the dishwasher. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but dishwashers don't seem to have a life much past 10 years. And if it fails, you'll potentially be dealing with water damage to your lovely new kitchen.

Thank you, everyone, for taking a look. :) I'll try to answer all of your inquiries to help with the advice. I'm attaching a photo of the room on the other side of the diagonal wall. If you shoot through the small door in the kitchen you hit the dining room. If you go left it's the living room. I'm probably going to leave the diagonal wall as it makes the living room less boxy. I've swapped all the flooring to wood-look, hand-scraped tile. I wanted hardwood but wanted bullet proof tile for my dog. The picture shows the installation. I haven't finished the kitchen floor but all of the other rooms are done. I'm adding 4" baseboard molding and painting it Farrow and Ball's All White. I'm looking for a beach, light blue with depth for the kitchen/family room. The cabinets are maple and in good shape. It makes it hard to donate/toss them. The family that had the house before me took the refrigerator and the microwave did not work so I purchased Kitchenaid counter-depth appliance in stainless. My Mom felt the built in oven was too small and so I purchased a down draft oven to replace the cook top. I already have to do some electrical there to move the extra wattage. My Dad is an electrical engineer so he can help with that. I would probably put the sink in the island and so I would have to move the plumbing. The good news is that I can almost stand up in the crawl space so hopefully that will make it a little easier. Because of the changes I'm already going to have to replace some of the cabinets... The granite. It's kind of pink/salmon with black and it is on every cabinet surface throughout the house. :0 I would like to swap this with Carrera marble and tile the black splash. I'm hoping the original granite can also be donated. I really want a timeless classic look. I priced inset cabinets (including the island) I think through the cabinet joint and they came in at around $15k. I think they were MDF and I really wanted wood. I haven't decided on a sink. I was concerned that farmhouse sinks were trendy but they seem to be staying around. :) The house theme is modern cape cod. So for the island option it would probably cost $22k. I priced cabinets at Home Depot (non-inset) and they came in around $5k. So less expensive cabinets would bring me in at $12k. If I leave the layout, paint the cabinets, order the replacement ones I need, swap the counter top and backsplash it would probably be around $7k. It's a pretty big difference in dollars. I also don't know if at some point if I would rent the house out. I don't know how bad a kitchen would take a hit. That's about it for now. Thank you again and please let me know if you have any other suggestions. :)

Your Pro should provide you with samples hat he uses a conversion varnish to finish. Cabinets aren’t painted with house paint. Or shouldn’t be.

I have found the visualizers great for figuring out what color I like. As with any web based or computer coloring tool, what you see isn't always what you get when you actually buy a bucket of paint and put it on your walls. It should get you close, but there is always some manual tweaking that has to be done to get the color to look the same in person as on screen. It isn't that the computer screen is wrong, it just doesn't account for any lighting changes from what they originally set up, and in real life, lighting changes throughout the day and is different indoors from outdoors and and and.. . . Please make large samples and try them before investing in a gallon of paint.