There appears to be kind of a taupe brown color in the large center medalliion areas of the rug. I think that might be a very sophisticated color for the DR. Brushed nickel accents in the room, a chandy in the brushed nickel with shades in the red. Of course, your furniture will play into the color choice, as will the flooring color. As for the entry, you say it isn't really much of an entry space, and part of it will be closed in when the doors to the home schooling space are closed. I think I would be inclined to do a soft cream color, perhaps like the one in the rug, for the entry. But that may also be dependent on the trim in the entry area, the flooring, etc. More specific details about the space would help.

shades, I have a dolly (no straps tho) but I still couldn't move things. could maybe stack a few smaller boxes on it. jed has some stretch bands? with hooks on the ends that he uses. I actually have 2 small ones like his. should buy longer ones. yes, I have different people say they'll come do stuff - but then something happens and they don't show up. I've been trying for over 3 wks to get new front tires. my mechanic said he'd get some for me and put on. then stuff happened at his shop (to do with wind storms here), after that his elderly mother needed help up in phx... I had a test scheduled and had to cxl it! he got here and took wheels off to have tires put on... then many days later on NYE day he made it here and put wheels on front. and left. about 2 hrs later I got in car to go to store and heard horrible noise when backing the car up. couldn't go anywhere. he finally made it back here on sat. Tires were wrong size. too big and were hitting the struts. He put those on the back and my back tires on the front so I could at least go to the store. he's coming back tomorrow to take car to the tire shop to have them changed and rotated back. good grief! that something so normally simple would be such a bear to get done. this has also had me stranded in my own house for days. I wanted to get out and pick up take out from local Mexican rest. - tired of my own 'cooking' - lol! (finally got my 'dinner' today!) Then Jed over watered my plants last sunday and ran me out of water - but I didn't know it... had to shut down the pump til more water could be delieved - on Wednesday! (that was today and I now have water again). just thinking of these things tires me... oh, and in between these things my son landed himself in the hospital in the Midwest with a blood infection. been in there 5 days, has something connected to him/in him by his heart. could have died / or lost his leg. will be able to go home (info from dd) but will need to return to hospital every day for 10 days to have more antibiotics put in whatever that 'thing' is attached to him. he says it's called cellulitis (what he has). I would have guessed that meant he had cellulite - he's way too thin and fit for that! And with my fibro I've been sleeping a ton again. and cold, damp weather outside here - that doesn't help. I hope anyone reading this survived...

Your rv area is 20' wide. Wonderful, but could you make it 2 or 3 feet narrower? Then, you could give that 2 or 3 feet to your living room/kitchen area. We just enlarged it from 18' to 20' upon the advice of folks at an RV forum who have built RV garages. One reason we did too is because one wall will have cabinets, workbench, and tools. That's 3'. The RV, with slide extended is 10.5'. Room to walk around the RV, and pull tools around to work on it inside the garage is another 6-7'. That's almost 21'. I would add some windows on the side of the rv space, even if high, awning types that could be cracked open for ventilation and light, if needed. That's an idea we haven't considered. We need to see if we would be able to get to them to open and shut the windows and the rolling shades we would have to put on them. Your guest bedroom - Think about placing the bed on the front wall, instead of the bathroom wall. Now, you can put a door to the bathroom, into that bedroom and you don't need the 1/2 bath, in the house, if you don't want one. The bedroom chair can still go in the corner, where you currently picture the bed, I think. I'm not sure I follow you. 3 doors into that 1/2 bath? We do need the half bath. We only need one shower, but we definitely need two toilets. Where you currently have the 1/2 bath, maybe that could be a closet, for whatever is in those 2 small closets in the hallways to the bedrooms? OR, you could enlarge your master closet into that area. ...If you remove the small closets, you might be able to widen your master closet. The other two small closets are for the water heater and HVAC. Since you are gone in the RV, most a good part of the year, do you need a hallway for the master bedroom? If you don't need a separated master bedroom, and you can get rid of those small closets, you can mov eh stairs back further, toward the master closet. That gains you at least 3 feet of space in your great room. I hadn't considered that. I don't have a problem not having a hallway to the master. But I don't see where I could put the door from the living room. What if you re-configure the entire bedroom side. Since you don't have guests, often and you were considering a jack and jill/shared bathroom. Why not just have one nice bathroom, between the 2 bedrooms that has it's entrance in the hallway? I definitely want a half bath on either side of the shower room. Personally, we don't like the idea of having to go through the bathroom to get to our master closet. If someone is using the bathroom, the other one, is not able to get into the closet. So, at the least, I would consider re-doing your existing bathroom, so that you have a more spacious vanity. As it looks now, you are wasting an entire foot of space in the bathroom, that could be used in the living room. I don't like rooms that have a door on every wall, especially bedrooms. I'd rather have my clothes in a convenient location when I get out of the shower instead of having to walk through the bedroom to the closet. Are you saying the half bath off the master is too wide? I would not make your porches any smaller. As it is, a 6' porch, sort of makes you sit like ducks in a row, if you have guests and it's harder to talk. Someone has to lean out to look at the person down the row of chairs. As a matter of fact, why not use ALL the space for your living room/kitchen and add shed roofed porches, to any width you like? Surely, they could do that. If we have people over, we will be in the car garage used as screened breezeway. We can set up tables, chairs, and cookout in there without flies and mosquitoes. We seldom sit outside now because it's not very pleasant. Thanks for looking this over. You've given me a lot to think about.

I would advise using something more of a "color" in a room that doesn't get much natural light. The reason the room looks dark or dingy is in part that the pale color is not strong enough enough in low light and it fades out. Since you will be using a lot of artificial lighting, I assume, I find yellows difficult. Look at real estate photos, particularly for yellow rooms lit only by artificial light, and the effect is often unexpected or unpleasant. I think this is because of the variation of color given off by lightbulbs.