Your mess sounds a lot like what my husband and I got ourselves into. But we knew we would eventually gut the entire house when we started, and planned it out in stages. We also planned for about a year before starting. Here is the floor plan we had when we bought the home. This is close to what we have now - the dining room and den were switched, and the layout in the two bathrooms isn't quite as shown. This includes an addition - mostly to add a basement area with an access from inside the house. We started in the fall of 2004 with moving the front door, then rearranging the laundry room and sectioning off for an entry way. Then we put in the patio door and gutted what was the dining room. We also put in a wood burning stove In March of 2005 we started on the addition. Once we had the addition buttoned up and re-roofed most of the house, we got back to work on converting the dining room into the new kitchen. We had to do this as the new bathroom was going where the kitchen had been. The old bathroom had to be removed before we could open up the house to the new addition. Because we knew we would be under construction for quite a while, we just cut the old cabinets and made them fit in the new room. In the late summer of 2005 we started gutting out the old kitchen and building the new bathroom. We had to leave the sink in place until we got the floor opened up so we could run the plumbing for the new sink location - that was not fun. We converted a closet into the entry way into the bathroom. Discovered the whole north wall had rot problem so we rebuilt the part where the bathroom would go Then we finished the new bath and had it working by thanksgiving of 2004. The next step was tearing out the old bathroom and opening up the wall to the new addition. Because of high water table problems, our addition is 2' higher than the existing structure. To make it work we vaulted the ceiling in what had been the old kitchen. First we had to rebuild the rest of the north wall - this was in December of 2005 Spent the rest of the winter working on finishing up the addition and our new dining room. In spring of 2006 we decided it was time to finish the roofing project. This included tearing off two layers of shingles and one of cedar shakes. We build a "cold roof" over the old roof to help with venting and insulation. Once that was done we finished working on the den (what looks like the dining room in the picture. And another wall to fix. This was August of 2006 Since we could not leave things open for the winter, I temporarily resided the rest of the house. We had planned on taking a break, but our son decided to move out a year early (he is in college) and with him gone, we could start on the 2 story part of the house. So in June of 2007 I started gutting that part of the house (My husband does not do demo work well LOL!). The bad part is we had to move everything out of that area into other parts of the house. Our bed is currently in the den - open to the kitchen. By October I had it all gutted and ready to fix up. We both took a week off work and got as much done as we could. This section of the house also had some serious damage. We had to jack up the north wall 3" on one end about about 5" on the other - Once we started we could not quit - got it all back supported around 3am. We rebuilt the east and west wall, put in new floor joists and put in new windows. But this meant taking off the siding I put on the fall before. We didn't have it quite done before we had to go back to work - my husband was working 6.5 hours away at the time. He was not home very much. Once we got the lower level of the exterior walls done, we started on the upper level. We wanted to get this all done before the cold weather started LOL! We finally had the exterior done and I got everything resided (for real this time). Then we got to work on the interior walls. We moved the old, steep stairway and built one that is safe to use. We inset the end wall of the kitchen into the main bedroom to make more room for the fridge and more shelves. We've got it all sheetrocked and will be painting this weekend. I'm excited - I may have a bedroom again before March! We still have the front porch to add. The final thing we will do is finishing up in the kitchen. That will be a winter project when my husband is layed off for the winter. We plan on making our own cabinets, and have been exploring different ideas. We may got with concrete counter tops, but have not decided yet - I still have time! In all this, we hired an excavator to put in the new septic system and dig for the addition basement. We hired the electric company to reroute the incoming electrical power to underground. But everything else we have done ourselves. This was not our first project, but by far our most ambitious. The entire plumbing and electrical in the house has been replaced, and new insulation has been installed. My husband has told me I will need a new husband if I ever want to try something like this again. Cathy

This is a story of what you should NOT do with your house. Bought a tiny 2 bedroom 1950s ranch in 1989. Added a floor and put the living, dining and kitchen on the top floor. It gave us a view of the mountains and the lake. Garage in the basement was incorporated into the basement floor space. Built a detached garage in 1997 to augment the garage that was lacking. Tried to see if we can move up in the neighborhood. Could not afford the comparable view and did not want to give it up. So we brought the middle floor to the stud and reconfigured it for 3 bedroom and 2 bath in 2002. (previously only 1 bath and very knarly floor plan which was inherited from the original house.) Finished the basement with a media room, infloor heating, trim to match the rest of the house etc. Fast forward another few years... We still cannot afford the view in the slightly better neighborhood any other way. (The upcharge is about 1/2 to 1 mil.) We looked at many houses recently! I recently saw a beautiful house that was done very well. But there was no view from the kitchen or the dining room. Saw another house that had a view from the living room only. We are not in the living room until it is dark outside! We would lose our breakfast with sunrise over the mountains. This was the usual story of all the houses that we looked at. At the comparable price point, the houses have the view from the bedroom, not from the kitchen or the living space. Because we have the ususual space arrangement of living/kitchen/dining floor at the top, we have the view from the rooms we use everyday as a family. This is unusual but gives us a very open space with 180 degree view. We are now embarking on a kitchen remodel of the kitchen that was put in 1989/1990. The kitchen was done on a budget and is not at the level of the quality that we have updated the rest of the house. So we are actually the other way around. Whole house remodel first and back to the kitchen which is 20 years old. In the end, we have the house that we want to live in. Had we not done this and lived with what is there or moved to another house and given up a few things, ie view, open living configuration, natural light etc, we would be way ahead in the money! Oh well, you can't take it with you...

I redid my son's kitchen with about the same number of cabinets as you have. We found decent looking and surprisingly well built RTA Chinese cabinets through a local discount builder supply for $6500. That was including an upgrade from particle board to plywood carcases. They assembled them for $25/cabinet. (At higher end kitchen places we were offered the opportunity to buy the same cabinets for nearly twice the money). I was able to install them without any problems in about two days work. Because of the plumbing and electrical work needed I tore the kitchen down to the studs, and took up three layers of prior flooring down to the subfloor. Moving plumbing and gas cost about $2000 with the plumber, I was able to pull an electrical permit myself in his town and added a new subpanel and completely rewired the kitchen for the cost of materials, less than $1000. Granite countertops were a splurge at $2400. Prefinished maple hardwood floor ran about $600. Very nice, nearly new pre-owned appliances came from Norm's for about $2000 for stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher. A decent hood was $600, building a soffit to hide the exhaust pipe was just cost of materials. I hired a plasterer for blueboard and plaster which was about $1000 for that room. So with incidentals (permits, paint, remaindered sink, faucet, and light fixtures), we spent about $16,000 in total, doing everything I could myself. We could have saved $1500 or so by using laminate countertops, and most of the plumber's bill if I'd been allowed to do the work myself, but it's hard to imagine we could have completed the project much cheaper.

That’s exactly what I’m looking for-warmth without going yellow. I’m sure you’ve read about the northern light adding a chilling effect to the room. What’s the reason for not using BM? My contractor said they prefer BM but would be willing to use a different brand if we wanted to, and I am having a hard time selecting the main color in BM (I have tons of sample paint already). SW has paint consultants that charge you to come out and help select your paint colors and then reduce that charge when you buy the paint. I haven’t heard of that with BM so I am trying to hire a paint consultant to help me. Or hiring an SW consultant and just have them match the BM paint to an SW color. Paint is a big decision! I’m putting in a white oak flooring as well.