In which I need remodelling advice.

So, I bought this house about 4 years ago, and when I bought it I had every intention of gutting the kitchen, taking out the bathroom that the previous genius owner had put in, and putting in another above the kitchen. I'd wanted to tile the bathroom floors, etc, etc, etc. Needless to say, none of that happened. But I'm getting increasingly frustrated with a kitchen I cannot cook in and a bathroom that is in one of the coldest parts of the house.

Originally, I was thinking of raising the roof over the kitchen and putting a nice bathroom in there, rather than shoehorning a bathroom into a closet (which would also be cold). I want to keep the kitchen and bath charming and in the spirit of the house, a 1950s cape cod (kinda, sorta).

I saw too many odd renovations when I was shopping for a house where it was a new, modern space plunked into an old one, it just didn't work.

What have you done as renovations that worked and didn't?