I appreciate the offers, guys, I'm sure I'll have questions as the reno progresses.
There are so many things we're uncertain about, mainly all focusing on the appearance of the kitchen, which is the focal point of the main floor for sure. Still picking out paint, cabinet handles, lighting, curtains, gotta find appliances too. The appliances thing seemed simple at first, but my cousin owns and manages a major appliance store, and told us recently that brands really don't make the product, essentially, they're all made the same way when they're around the same price, and that its only the extended warranty, and the features of the warranty that matter. We were looking at Bosch appliances, which as you may know, are very expensive, but now, we're uncertain. I'm unsure if I should try to look online, do some appliance research, or get some opinions on the forum about their appliances.
Dlish- I already feel the stress, that started long ago, when we were first developing the new layout. :P But I rationalize, while it'll be tough to not have a main floor for awhile, our house is quite accommodating: we have two kitchens, 4 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, one living room, one den, and a fully furnished basement. We'll be fine, I think. lol. What's stressing me out most is the utter amount of crap we have! My family are pack rats, I'm anti-pack rat. Just seeing all those boxes of old crap stresses me out.
As for the contract, I think we're good. See, it took around two months to assess the house, determine what could be done with what the structure supplied, determined the age of items, and what needed replacing, such as upgrading the insulation, talking with an engineer to see what walls could be knocked out, and how, what needed to be restructured, and meeting after meeting as to how much every piece would cost. It wasn't until all of that was complete, and a total created, that my mom signed the contract. These guys are good, expensive, but worth every penny. The workers are efficient, always on time, polite, and always watch for safety, keep the place as clean as possible.
When the house was built, a lot of things were done wrong, we knew it, since my parents watched everything get butchered. Now that we have the chance to fix the wrong, we're all set! For example, we have several bay windows in the house, and the one by the kitchen was kind of built as a floating floor, meaning, if you look at the bay window outside, it projects out of the house's structure. So, the floor isn't insulated, and REALLY cold once the temp drops below 15 celsius. We're getting that fixed.
I'll take pictures when I get home.