@ Geller Thanks for your comments. I like your idea to rearrange the kitchen. On another forum, I received mixed responses to the corner sink. I was planning to leave it as is because I wanted the corner window view. I did not want to switch the stove and sink as a corner stove really limits accessibility when there are two cooks (we have this in our current home). However, your idea of moving the sink to the stove location (along with the DW) and adding a window on the SE wall would give us a more accessible sink location and a larger window for more light (the porch is only 5' deep here). Moving the stove to the SW wall, a few feet from the refrigerator, should also work.Thanks. How many bathrooms to have on the second floor is a good question. I think one bathroom per bedroom is overkill, but is two bathrooms for four bedrooms enough? About 3-4 times a year we have family stay with us from out of town, usually for 1-2 weeks at a time. The remainder of the time the guest bedroom will be a home office for the adults. We are considering finishing a 3/4 bathroom in the basement, which might provide a reasonable alternative for guests in a pinch (although a bit of a hike up and down stairs). For resale, I can see how some families might want three bathrooms upstairs if all of the bedrooms are occupied. I will discuss this with our architect at our next meeting tomorrow.

Lwehling, can you post pics? If you've read many forum posts - you'll understand that as helpful as everyone wants to be, pictures speak a thousand words. A visual will help you to get great suggestions from forum members. Also... We just like to see other people's old houses. We're "peekers"... It goes with old house ownership. (We love them all.). :-)

It's a tough choice for you because when looking back, it looks like the wood under your siding was taken off- I've never heard of that before, I wonder why on earth anyone would do that? Some homeowners make really strange choices. With that in mind, I honestly don't know what I'd do in your position. Doing wood is the right thing to do, but you are right, that would be very expensive. Part of the choice is finding out what is under there- is your home really drafty? You can put in more insulation when doing this project, which you might want to budget for. With colors, I'd suggest looking into Roger Moss's books. Many have been out of print for some time, but you could find them at the library. My friend who is a historic preservationist recommended his books to me when thinking of color- she specifically mentioned "Century of Color". Fantastic books that really help you think of color and placement. I'm not sure what colors we are going to choose, most of the homes on our block are white, as is our house currently, but it just so happens that the house on one side is a yellow-cream color with dark brown trim, and the house on the other side is a deep green-brown color with cream trim and a red door. Fitting a color scheme into those in a way that doesn't look too much like one or another is tough. I have several preservation colors that I'm looking at, but after exhausting many of them, we might fall off the preservation wagon and do slightly different colors in order to have them fit into our block. If we make a definite decision, I'll post it!

It has lots of Italianate house features, but I think at one time or another the facade of the house was completely renovated. I agree with Casey, the porch is a bit over the top for that style house... I don't know whose bright idea was to put that front door in, it definitely doesn't belong there. This is the true Italianate home style features Most noticed features of the Italianate home would be flat roofs or certain roof areas with square towers. Often doors and windows were ornamented with articulated wood trim and sometimes interior was designed with arched or rounded crossheads and it would have a header trim at the top of the door or window opening. Good luck in your new home!