As long as you're not moving the plumbing, I'd totally tackle your kitchen DIY.

You guys can do the demo. I'd hire out for floor refinishing and an electrician. I might hire that guy you talked to last weekend to move the doorway to the living room if you guys give it a shot and then need to be bailed out

Otherwise, it's a really great candidate for Ikea cabinets; base cabinets with drawers and the soft close feature will change your life. They're just so easy and such a great value. (However that counter extension going back to the window like in Matt's drawing might be a tricky hack for a beginner.)

If you have good design sense or good design advice, are handy, have the time and can be patient (triple check everything, learn why this job is done before that job), doing a lot of it yourself may well be the way to go. In my area the contractors wanted $30K-$50K to coordinate only, the materials and the subs who will do the work, extra...unless you are a plumber or an electrician you will still need to sub those jobs out, just like the contractor. My kitchen is just not that big, but for my neighborhood I was told that I should spend at least $120,000 or $750 sq ft.... I priced out the components, including new expensive floors, cabinets and fancy countertop, replumbing and a new service panel and adding in $30K for the contractor and still topped out at just over $60 K because the kitchen was just so big...clearly you can rip it down and rebuild for less. It is a racket so you will really need to educate yourself.

Yeeeeeah...... We're working with a $15k budget here. lol We just need to NOT have our cabinets and drawers require re-gluing and re-nailing every 3 months :) The layout has to remain the same due to funds... the only real "change" thats happening is we are getting rid of the wall oven and drop in stove for a regular stove and adding a dishwasher. Other than that it's staying the same for this project. I must say, i am pretty dumb founded how many contractors so far don't measure a kitchen. 0_0 i thought it was a standard procedure!? ... wow..

Part 1 can be found here: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3275635/do-you-like-a-puzzle

Oh .. and also .. im not sure where everyone else is located but a 15K budget here in New York ... is about the equivalent of about 650.00 in the south and 950.00 out west :) (NY is repulsively expensive! :( i am almost not exaggerating...)

What about a big box store? They want to sell you THEIR cabinets, but they should be able to help you with basic measurements.

I know you don't want to paint....but maybe stain an unfinished cabinet? Also, what do you want for countertops and backsplash? Are you using the same flooring?

I have been fooling with Benje's design in the IKEA planner. Edited to add: Sorry for the duplicate - I can't seem to remove it.)

You want hickory doors? You can put 3rd party doors on IKEA's boxes and still get their Blum hardware and soft-close, full-extension drawers.

I've also been playing with Cabinetnow.com, one of those 3rd party door-makers who are conversant with the IKEA switcheroo. They also have a cost generator on their site. When I input the door and drawer sizes for the Benje's-kitchen-fronts (with the addition of a booth with seats fashioned from over-refrigerator cabinets), the cost is very similar to the price of IKEA's Grimslov medium-brown. ($11,000, which includes the cabinets, hardware, counters, handles, sink and stove, fridge, microhood and paneled dishwasher. (IKEA's sales are 20% off, but with the fairly recent debut of their replacement line, Sektion, these sales are on hiatus til ?)

See you are already doing it yourself!

With such a small kitchen, and such a small budget, I'd recommend DIY using IKEA cabinets. Also, most construction materials go on sale around September because that's usually the end of the official building season in NY. Most construction stops during winter, so you might find some deals in Sep/Oct.