There used to be more cabinets than we needed but I can always add some uppers later if I want. I follow the paleo diet so I wanted a different type of kitchen. You don’t need lots of cabinets for crackers and stuff if you are a paleo homemaker - lots of work space though! We remodeled our smallish 1980’s kitchen from May to October of 2014. My sister did her kitchen a couple of years ago and told me about Houzz. She encouraged me to design the kitchen for my style of cooking and to look at the space itself before deciding on materials. The demolition, moving and lengthening of walls was not as expensive as I thought it would be. Removing the dining room wall was several thousand dollars because they had to build a temporary stud wall so they could put in the beam. However, a decision to lengthen that sink wall at the right end, for example, only added about $300 to the budget. Even if I had a smaller budget I would still choose all the space modifications first - as a priority. Photos by Catharine Krueger