i'm on bedrest or i'd whip over and take a few pics, but let me try to explain. in the living room, the maple floor has a walnut inlay about an inch wide that outlines the wood. the inlay stops the wood floor from running right off into the stairs by providing a frame of sorts to the room. the same is done on my landing to the master suite (the frame) and then in the door specifically we have one strip of wood running the same direction as the door, and from there the rest of the floor radiates out on a diagnal (pointing to the lake). THE SAme (stupid arm hits the cap button) will happen in the family room...with a wood strip stopping one wood and then the other wood will run at a different angle to the landing. if instead you tried to just run the exact same wood in the same direction as the other wood in your home...well it's akward (AND i've seen it more than once this way). i personally find having the same wood throughout the entire house gets boring. i want my rooms and home to have destinct personalities, but personalities which flow well :) hopefully i've acheived that by keeping the tones comfortable with each other. if not,maybe the magazine folks will run out screaming when they come to shoot (patient suckers i'll say!) heh heh

All of the design and decorating kudos go to the GF! My son just went along and paid the bills..lol..she bought some stuff too.. and my DH and I just helped with the free labor!!! She really has decorated the house beautifully and on a budget.. in all areas except the floor they stayed in the budget we worked out prior to the purchase! Here are a few more b/4 and after.. dining room before.. I still have to get a new pic from that angle.. but next two you can get the idea after living room beforeonce again.. different angle.. but LR after - no more french doors, and wider opening master bath before.. REALLY UGLY!!! This is after.. but before the vanity and mirror were put in.. one wall of all subway tile, my husband did!! And crummy acrylic shower was replaced with tiled with frameless door.

I absolutely adore that blue hutch in your kitchen and the sunroom ceiling color. Amazing! Seeing the tones in those and the floor/cabinets/counters, I would chose a fairly neutral tone trim color like BM Simply White. If the tone has any warm reds it could read pink (our engineered cherry floors did this to us) or yellows it will emphasize the counters. Since your floors have an orange tone (at least on my monitor) and that's opposite on the color wheel from the blue hutch and accents throughout your home, I recommend not encouraging or contrasting that color. Essentially, adding more warm color tones like Cotton Balls would make the warm tones even more dominant and adding cool would provide contrast, potentially making the warm pop more. A neutral tone will let the two coexist without dominance. Threers is right about lighting too. My husband rebelled at daylight lights in most rooms, but our kitchen was the one room that really needed it. Higher kelvins can wash out some of the warm tones, which can make the colors better go with the rest of your home.

The furniture base for the cabinets is 4.5” high and the base we want to use throughout the rest of the kitchen is 5 1/4” and each piece has a slighky different tapered finish at the top. Our concern is when the short piece along the lower cabinets meets the taller piece of base at the wall, given the top of the shorter piece will meet the tapered profile of the taller piece, it will look odd. As for just installing the same 4.5” throughout the kitchen, we feel That it doesn’t look tall enough for the room.