Hello Everyone! Thank you so much for all of your suggestions!! Les917 - I wondered if anyone would mention that space between the pictures! Actually I'll be mounting 3 sea stars in that space, I'm just waiting for them to arrive. teacats - I love the idea of a mirror over the dresser. It definately needs something. We've only been in our home since Sept. so we've just started to mount pictures and decorate the walls. I love the idea of the tall thin black lamps to frame the mirror. I'm not sure yet where I want the photo that is currently over the dresser. It's not mounted because I haven't felt like it belongs there. I'm not sure about putting anything above the bed. The bed is so imposing that I have been afraid that adding anything more above it, would just magnify that. Because the headboard is so high, it just seems to me that adding something above it would be overkill. The ceiling in that alcove was done that way by the builder. It is textured just like the room ceiling is, so I am thinking that it was designed to be ceiling. The plan had an overhead ceiling light in that space that we did not choose to go with. If I leave the photos as they are, add the mirror and black lamps to the dresser, and decide to go with 2 matching nightstands...what color should I go with? Black, white? Thanks!

I also think you should go with the Mahogany Bronze. I don't like the Antique Copper since your cabinets and floor are the same tone, and the Antique Copper would be too much of the same reddish tone. For your cabinetry hardware, I think you should do something similar to the Mahogany Bronze or an oil-rubbed bronze, something with the brown in it. I like how the silvery blue in your granite is just a highlight and adds an extra layer of interest in your countertop, but I personally don't like the idea of bringing out that silver into the metal finishes because they are cool tones. I think everything else in your kitchen is warm, from granite to cabs to floors, so you should stick with something warm in your metals. Hmmm...I rethought it and realized that the Brushed Nickel has warmth in it. Here's my revised advice (needed to think it through first!) and i think either option would work well. 1) You can do all brown/dark finishes in faucets and hardware. It would be Mahogany Bronze for faucet, and similar metal OR oil-rubbed bronze for hardware. 2) Do all Polished Nickel for hardware and faucet. Good luck!

This is a cross post in Design Dilemmas but I'm not getting any feedback there. :( Maybe someone here can help me. I'm almost done a new build at the beach and have a small problem. I didn't realize that the architect specified ORB hardware for the back sliding doors. Now they're in but there is no other ORB in the house. The lighting fixtures in the rest of the house and interior door hardware are unlaquered or antique brass and I was planning on doing the kitchen pendants in antique brass as well. The faucets and cabinet hardware are polished nickel. I don't like having this random third metal thrown into the mix but the handles are really, really nice. I could 1) make the pendants ORB, 2) change the door handles to white (I don't like Andersen's antique brass) or 3) change the pendants to antique nickel. The floors are gray stained white oak and the peninsula overhang will be edge grain walnut. All of the window hardware is white. (Please ignore what look like flaws in the design...the second sink is more of a bar sink, not really a prep sink. Also the sliding door opening from the wrong side and a few of the bad light positions are being addressed). Thanks for whatever advice you can offer. I'm incapable of making decisions at this point.

@Diana K the article link was just for a reference to the excerpt in my previous post that said a dark cool color would be "awesome" in a south-facing room. The dark blue-greens you have been favoring are exactly what THAT professional feels would be "awesome". A lot of the advice given in many articles that discuss the effects of natural and artificial light on paint colors do indeed assume everyone on the planet must have pastel or neutral or some version of grey or beige. Your Malted Milk is in that class of colors, but your other colors seem strong enough to stand on their own. I likewise find the pale-centric advice frustrating. Why should those of us who like bold colors have to work so hard to translate? I was just trying to say that there are opposing viewpoints out there. I think that's why it all comes down to seeing the stickies in the room and with the lighting you hope to have. @elcieg can you please be more specific about this statement? "For instance the green and aqua have yellow undertone. South light is going to do mean things to it." Do you mean that south light has yellow in it so that any blue will look more green, and green will look yellow-green? "Mean" doesn't translate for me. I have a north-facing room that washes everything with blue light and the blues look more intense, so I get that. And my east-facing room gets pink light in the morning so pinks are nice in there. My west-facing rooms get orange light. My south facing rooms get green but only because the light is filtered through trees. Can you help explain "mean" in terms of light colors?