Dreaming Of A New Kitchen

When we first moved into our home (way back in 2004), I was in love with it. After living here for 14 years, I have come to want some changes made, especially in the kitchen. We are lucky, and have a large area to work with. Our kitchen has it's preparation area, and then an eating area to the side - which is separated by a counter. We changed the colour of the walls last fall; went from white to orange. It made it a little better.

We would like to make it one large area, instead of the separate eating area (we rarely used it to eat in, more when the kids were small for lunch than anything else). We want to remove the counter that splits the kitchen, add a large island into the middle, and then extend the cupboards all the way down the length of the kitchen.

It's going to be a lot of work (adding in electrical in a new area, changing the plumbing, flooring, cupboards and backsplash). We have white cupboards (which we like), but with an all white backsplash, it is a little washed out. We would like to spruce it up a bit with different tiles. We would also like to add hardwood flooring, to make a fresh start, in the rest of the main level at the same time (why go through the hassle with renovations twice?)