Everyone has heard my Cleo stories. She's Hyper with a capital H. She's also definitely a hunting dog. (She's a rescue from Animal Services.) This morning as I was watering, I found Honeybells and Bridegroom upside-down and June Fever sideways. I assume she chased a squirrel up the bleachers again. I don't think bleachers was the best idea I ever had. This is my last year for that one. It works well for Paula, though. I'm glad it's August. bk

Me!?!?!?, hail no, I'm not that crazy lady. Good heavens she's a kook. . . . Well, okay, so maybe it might be me. ;-) If we recall, in my very first response to lottamoxie the very first line in my reply was: "Depends on how you want to define "match". Depends on what *kind* of color you're talking about." Just like almost everything else in color world, you gotta take it one person, one room, one color, one *kind* of paint at a time -- there is not much that is one-size fits all. I am so on board with not being able to "color match" the uber brands. If there is parade to raise awareness to prevent people from wasting their time and money doing so, I volunteer to carry the front banner. In my last post I talked about the two women at the Home Depot. In that example I would be the lady with the tragic trainwreck F&B color matching experience. I, personally, could never be the tickled pink woman who saved $20 and walks away thinking she got her boutique paint & color at a bargain price. As always, I can tell ya exactly why THAT scenario as well as the project from the Kennon site is different than lottamoxie's specific "color matching" endeavor that we have been discussing so far. Get comfy. :D 1. Lotta is looking at matching a Ben Moore color in Sherwin Williams Duration. The source that set her first visual benchmark for that color was a regular-size, ink on paper, paint chip. She hadn't seen that color in or on another house. 2. We're not talking about any extenuating circumstances here with paint or color. It's not an uber shee-shee final finish paint base like from Fine Paints or F&B, and she's not looking at complex color like C2 or a full spectrum. 3. Color benchmark that's been set by the color information she's been exposed to about that color deployed on structure to this point is normal and limited. (she's just seen a chip). Developing her expectations about what a "color match" means is easy. That is low hangin' fruit for a color consultant. (No offense lotta. I don't think you're a fruit, it's just a figure of speech) 4. Lotta mentioned an awareness, a desire, to make sure that the vibe and visual she is getting from that chip will translate into her gallons of paint. She's not looking to make sure she likes the color, she wants to make sure she GETS her color. Reassurance, like from PG, might be all someone needs. As a reminder PG told lotta that "close enough is good enough for most people". She understood what he said. What happened was that her expectations for "color match" relaxed and were now clarified and defined. Anxiety addressed. Thanks to Paintguy she now knows to expect close enough and she's decided to be okay with the parameters of "color match" that PG helped define. She's proceeding down that path. Moon added to the reassurance and has given her some pointers for along the way. Circling back around to the kooky lady on the Kennon site who says that full spectrum colors can't be "matched" and clarifying further just how that is different from lotta's situation: Kennon, Citron, C2 and some other brand's color chips are real paint, not ink on paper. They're also bigger than your standard paint chip. These factors set tougher color matching benchmarks, more refined color expectations to deal with and meet. This is one of the BIG things that painter in the story on the Kennon site chose to ignore. When trying to match regular to full spectrum, it involves differing mentalities, methods, philosophies and processes of mixing color. Lotta is going from Ben to Sherwin. Different paint products, but they are both essentially playing the game of color by the same rules and those rules include black and fewer colorants. Whatever else might be different between the brands, their color philosophy is the same. This is the other BIG thing that the painter in the story on the Kennon site chose to ignore. The Kennon colors use ICI bases and ICI colorants. The painter underestimated just how much color philosophy and mixing technique could matter. The leap from a Ben Moore color to a Sherwin Williams paint is not a big one from a color matching perspective. The leap from say, Citron, to Pratt & Lambert or whatever *regular* brand would be a much bigger leap due to many of those technical factors mentioned but ALSO because of color mixing practices. There is no *dubious practice* to color matching. There is just a lot of confusion surrounding what is fair and reasonable to expect in each unique color matching circumstance. The confusion is compounded by the fact that there is no resource that properly educates the consumer of color on how to buy color. That's because it is complicated, involved, and a whole lot of work to do so and there are not many people who are truly equipped to do it. As you've found there is all kinds of stuff out there about paint - because that's the easy part - but the information about architectural color, not Color Theory 101, is sparse and is heavily sprinkled with misinformation. The reason for that confusion, once again, can be attributed to the fact that there is little in color world that is one size fits all. Just because it may be difficult - almost impossible to match one particular color or finish does not mean that "color matching" will fail 100% of the time nor does it mean that there is no such thing as a "color match". CalGal, I think I addressed all the really good points you've brought up in your post(s). If not, post away with more. I could talk and talk and talk and talk about color! Maybe I really am a kook. :~D We just need to be sure that lottamoxie doesn't feel like her thread is being hijacked.

As Breezygirl said, dimensions would help and a wider shot of the area around the kitchen. Can the kitchen push out to the right at all? If you could get rid of the angle, and fit in an island, you could get better work spaces, I think, and room to work with the little ones as they get old enough. The angle might not be doing you too many favors in the work zone...It gives you something to navigate around/a hip bumper when getting things from the fridge to the sink, and a pretty wide aisle that makes it a long way across to the stove area with dripping wet veggies, or across from the stove with a pot of boiling water to drain. The other thing I see is that most of your workspace faces the wall. Where do you plan to store dishes? There isn't much cabinet space near the dishwasher. Sorry to sound so negative! Just want to give you things to think about so you can consider them now and not be disappointed later.

Hi Suzanne I haven't read any of the comments and I will give you my opinion from a personal standpoint not a design one. My husband and I recently built a downsized home leaving our large family home behind. We converted our formal dining room space into an office as , like you, the space was just never used. That said we made sure we had a kitchen eating area that could house a table that sat 8. Sometimes I wish we had gone larger on our table. I had one custom Made to fit the space and didn't do one with extensions. This coming Thanksgiving will be a bit tight but we will make it work. We also have a large island. We use the island a lot. Currently with Covid as my husband has taken over the office space my work surface has spilled onto the island. However I would never forgo that dining table area. We do still eat there. If friends come over we play cards there. If the kids come for dinner we eat there. It is used several times a week still. We also eat at the island. We use both. However our favorite spot is our screened in porch area which is right off the dining area. We have another table that seats 6 there and weather permitting we eat our meals out there. Our island has a sink. Makes for easy clean up. If I could have I would have had my sink under a window with a bank of windows and left my island free from sink or cook top. That isnt a complaint just something if given the choice I would have done. Our new floorpan is very close to the second one you've shown. It is perfect for us.