Forgive me, I am a tiny bit confused. Is this all one kitchen? Or are the two top photos your kitchen and the others inspiration? I see so many different hardware styles so thought maybe I am looking at more than one kitchen.

If the two top photos are what you are working on how about a tile from Genrose. They make a beautiful handmade tile that ties in the white, gold and even a dash of green. The warm wood kitchen stools and the dark wood shelves keep this space less stark or clinical.

Genrose handmade tiles

Timeless? The reality is that everything fades the important piece is do you love it. True timeless-ness is the love you have for it. I have an old leather chair, an antique book, a murano vase, a painting of the church I got married in... they might look dated but to me they are timeless.

Can you have electricians come back after you have your rug and furniture in place? Once they are arranged you will be able to figure where they make sense. We have one just under edge of sofa and one around midpoint of area rug on one side to accommodate a chair and table or two chairs.

What is under the living room?

I had to give an exact location for my 2 floor outlets during construction because I am on a slab. Of course, I ended up arranging the furniture differently than I had originally planned! One of my outlets ended up completely covered by the area rug. I made it work with the other outlet, but had to use an extension cord and part of it is under the area rug. Not ideal, but it isn't a high traffic area.

Some people will cut holes in area rugs to run the plugs through it, but I wasn't willing to do that with a hand-knotted rug.

Pull them off and start over again with a more appropriate material? Not possible to do a job that doesn't look like ^&%$ without using the appropriate corner pieces. Having trouble envisioning what is trying to be accomplished here in the first place. I'd trim it out with azek and forget the fake stone.

You've gotta admit that you've only shown us pictures that are a bit evocative of the big tent or a hall of geology on acid. :) (Said with love!)

I think we are just trying to go with our interpretation of what we see as your aesthetic, the limitations of the floor, plus your crying over things being too wimpy and your comment that having all white cabinets is throwing in the towel.

It makes perfect sense to me that you need to keep your floor. Non-negotiable. It now seems like you want an all white set of cabinets and that you do have a lot of white in your home and are ok with it. Cool. You want the backsplash made out of counter material and it should be a bright blue, though that might be near impossible to find one that doesn't clash with the floor. The challenge. Are you not back where you started with just hoping for a different countertop that will pop more than what your designer showed you yet will look ok with your floor?

And yes, the old days of Garden Web were a delight. And, it is great that you and your designer work well together and have for years. Given that, I'm surprised that they showed you this mellow countertop scheme.

Keep us posted.

Agree, command hooks are the answer, since you can stick them at whatever height you want.

Command hooks are great and they look finished. I even have one on our glass shower wall to stage a towel when using the shower.

Command makes some attractive metal hooks now. That’s what I used on the back of my closet door to hold my nightgown and robe. It works great.

I think your fears of it looking dirty are real. Even if you don't have a lot of dirt or mold or moss or twigs or leaves adhering there, how can a white anything not look dirty? And I think you will always be aware of the dirt/dust whatever that will naturally congregate next to those nice ridges.

And as I write this, I am aware of my white metal downspouts and gutters which after this winter have a lot of dark gunk in the many crevices formed as it comes down off the roof. And if you have white siding or know someone who does, go look at that.

Before you decide, look at that beautiful house after a year or two.

It might have looked okay if you had been able to use the Via Lattea just on the small splash behind the sink up to the bar. But I am not loving the idea of the black tile there and then white tile on the rest. I love that stone though because it mimicks soapstone.

I would have the cabinets painted first and then choose the backsplash. I love the turquoise!

My husband and I always use dressers for stays of more than 1-2 nights in hotels. When we stay in a STR, we are usually staying for 3 nights or more, and always want to unpack into dressers and closets. One of the pleasures of staying in a STR is the sense that we aren't staying in a hotel, but in a more "home-like" environment, so we like to have our things put awayrather than stepping around and looking at our rummaged-through suitcases for a week! So I vote for dressers...and also for plenty of hangers in the closets! All the best!

I totally unpack using drawers and closets even for 1 and 2 night stays... although I might be the only one. ;P

I would bet you have the best parties. My kids always begged for a pool table. So much fun!!! Your selection goes perfectly fine. This is a party room and the woods will work. Get it and start practicing so when you host a party you will be the "Pool Shark!"

Really though, there is not a whole lot of support for doing a lot of things in the kitchen forum or the decorating forums--only things within a fairly limited range of acceptability.

If you want to do anything out of the ordinary in terms of kitchen finishes "It's a really big investment, are you sure you want to___" "This will be dated very quickly" "This trend is already over" "This is a very dated look already".

If it's wallpaper "You will get tired of that very fast", "I spent two years stripping ugly wallpaper and I said never again" "This will be dated very quickly"

If it's anything like carpet: "Carpet is disgusting"

If it's traditional drapes, "They're heavy/ they block light/they are covering a view/ they are dust catchers".

There are a lot pf words used to place nearly anything that actually isn't a currently accepted middle-of-the-road trend, in a very negative light.

Not everybody pays attention to trends. Sometimes a trend that is "over" still appeals to someone, or it may still be on trend in their area. Not everyone is fickle. Some people like things forever. Some people are clean. They don't wear shoes on the carpet, they don't have pets or spill things, and if they do it gets cleaned up immediately. Some people clean or vacuum a lot, and it's not because they have no life.

Essentially, if you want anything that is not pretty much some currently acceptable design practice, you are made to feel as if there is something the matter with you, your taste, your housekeeping.

Actually I think there is a whole world of design out there that is quite a bit different than what we see in here, but the people who do it aren't in here asking for advice. They either don't want it, don't need it, or have found if they ask for it, the primary advice is to talk them out of it.

It's pretty restrictive when people start talking about how many inches above a sofa or a table a picture must be, or what percentage of width of one object compared to another must be, or how many objects one is allowed to display on a table and so forth. All of those guidelines are reasonable guidelines, but they certainly aren't absolute rules.

You could have the front door glass frosted.

my back porch door and front door are in line as well. . We have privacy glass on front door, clear on back door. Delivery people can’t see in through house that way.

It sounds like you have a good contractor! It is important to have proper slope to the drain in a shower (typically 1/4"-1/2" per foot I believe) in order to make certain the water goes into the drain and doesn't just pool on the floor. Probably even more important in your case where you have a curbless entry. Because of that slope and obviously tiles being rigid, you need the tiles to be small enough to conform to that slope without creating lippage between the tiles.

This older thread has a great comment from MongoCT talking about it.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2268601/maximum-tile-size-for-shower-floor

If you were doing square tiles, your contractor could cut them down into smaller pieces within the shower. Not sure that's feasible with octagonal tiles. As Mongo says in that thread, if the shower slope has defined breaks, sometimes larger tiles can be used and cut along those breaks. If I were you, I'd ask the contractor what size is needed in the shower. Then either go with that size tile for the whole floor, or find one that has a smaller matching option for the shower area, or one that can be cut down into that size for the shower area.

I'd use a 2" hex.