Or if you want to talk about it here, that's fine too. You haven't posted since you were going to meet with the contractor, and I was afraid it might be bad news.

Marti- Sorry, no it wasn't bad news, just got distracted and forgot to come back. Thanks for asking, though :)

Our contractor liked the plan very much, although he's puzzled that I don't want a master bath. He thinks the french doors in the hallway are a great idea (I think that was ML's idea) but he says most gals want a master bath.

He also really liked Summerfield's software and was very impressed with the drawing. He said it shouldn't be any problem to do the kitchen/dining flip and the sunroom will be a little more money, but probably more useful than a formal living/dining area, on a farm. LOL

The one thing that is kind of puzzling, is the upstairs bathroom. It's fine if we want to have a suite, basically one bedroom with attached bath and a study...but the bath will work better over the utility/half bath, then over the hall bath, so we'll play around with that a bit. I have been thinking about making the space over the kitchen/dining area into a bunk room for the nieces and nephews (with bath off of it) and then another guest/sewing room over the living room/bedroom (it's more of an attic space with a dormer) so we'll see what happens.

We're breaking the renovation into three stages, so we can kind of pay as we go, or if we don't end up with lots of unexpected costs, might do it all at once...but it gives us more flexibility. Next step is to clean out all the old farmhouse 'stuff' which will take a while...and give myself a few weeks to make sure I really love the plan and don't want to make any more changes. Then it's time to see an architect or someone about 'real plans' and maybe an engineer, to make sure about the structure...and taking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room (which are currently two separate rooms).

I'll let you know how things go...and thanks again for all the help and support with my plan. I knew it would be a bit before we could build (we just put a lot of money into our business) and we'll probably spend the summer cleaning everything up and maybe do some demo in the fall. We'll have a better idea, by July (I hope) as to when we can actually start. Right now, I'm just thrilled I finally have such a great plan....thanks to all of you helping me and Summerfield's great design software! :)