Its supposed to go up today! I'm excited but very, very nervous. If you're interested I'll send you a pick when its done. We went with the Hearthstone Brown because of the reddish wood bedroom furniture, although after reading a couple of posts about other things it sounds like maybe I should have picked the bluer toned one instead. Who knew? I thought, red with red... oh well! :) Louise

Boopadaboo, I used to have colors on walls when I was growing up. Then when I saw the townhouse I am now living in with all neutral colors in the house and on the walls, it felt so beautiful, peaceful and elegant to me. I told the painter to patch up the holes in the wall from the seller's pictures and paint it the same color. I should have just left the newly painted walls alone and added pictures everywhere the seller did! The paint was too white with a touch of yellow with no white trim and I hated it. Finally years later when I repainted after trying so many off-white colors, I found I loved BM Bone White in most rooms but two where they appeared a totally different color. I painted the trim BM White. I found the door that I never painted over in one of the rooms that I keep storage in and it is similar to what I finally chose! My Master Bedroom is Ralph Lauren Deep Cream. I hated that same color in my Master Bathroom and repainted it BM Navajo White which I wish was a tad darker and since the paint job is so bad by the painter, one day I must get around to repainting it. The guest bedroom is painted BM Philadelphia Cream which changes color throughout the day and is not my favorite. The rest of the house is so peaceful in BM Bone white. My other two bathrooms are Ralph Lauren Deep Cream and they need a new wall color but I just live with this one despite it not working that well in these two rooms. I love color with accents and my reddish Brazilian Cherry Floors. I like peaceful wall colors I have learned. So glad you love the color you chose for your walls. Color is important to many of us and I feel it affects mood. Some people feel better with bright colors on the wall and others with dark less bright colors and others with neutrals. With neutral walls, you are free to add accent colors that you can change out when you feel like it.

It's difficult to suggest paint colors when we don't know what else it has to coordinate with. Sorry if I missed a previous post. I moved into a house with yellow cabinets, and had a very hard time finding a paint color for the kitchen and adjoining family room. I ended up with BM Bennington Gray HC-82. You can also use the VCB at half strength, or go down the strip to Wedgewood Gray or Woodlawn Blue for other areas. If you do not want more blue, take a look Guilford Green, a nice soft gray green. I'm sorry if this is of no help to you. Please show us some pics to get more help. This is HC-82 in the kitchen. P.S. We did paint the new toe kicks to match the cabinets, and are still waiting for light rail and crown.

Hi Annie, Remodelfl and Rhome! Annie, Sorry to confuse you by not having the appliances drawn correctly yet. I just had the architect flip the island just to get a visual without spending time on planning where functional things should be. But I'm with you, I love the idea of facing the view when I prep but because it's open to the living room, I was concerned about seeing the side of the island too. Funny you gave me that suggestion (and thanks for taking the time to post the pic) because when she heard I love booths, she suggested the island facing south with a big booth connected to it facing the view. The ideas seem similar. It partially solved the problem of looking at the side of the island because you were just seeing one big mass, but there were a couple of things that concerned me. I was mainly worried that it would be too much of a reach for me to try to clean the far side of the island on a daily basis without walking around. To create a separation from the living area, you'll see she also drew a big buffet that would also help to create a visual barrier like an island facing the living room, I supposed. But it would still be low so I'm not sure if that works in practice? I think the buffet would be fantastic to serve on when having a dinner party. My concern was that with the south side of the island taken up by the booth and the buffet on the side, then everyone would be squeezed between the buffet and island if they wanted to talk to me. That isn't a bad thing, but I was thinking, and please tell me if my thinking is wrong, if I'm going to have the very open plan, creating little aisles and things to have to walk around and not having big open places for guests to stand seemed to defeat the purpose. Am I wrong on this? I Here is the pic of that idea. Hi Remodelfla, Great question. This house will be in northern CA so we will be able to be outside a lot of the time. I'll tell you what outdoor areas we have to see what you think. That porch you see at the end of the living room is a screened in porch that can be accessed next to the fireplace. I was thinking that location was good because it's blocked by the fireplace and it's central to the living area and bedroom. I can see hanging out there quite a bit. But, your point about how far to take things is excellent. The other spots, so far... we have a big entry courtyard and I picture having some furniture there because it's very windy where we are and sometimes it might be nice to be outside but protected. I like how we will be able to peak througn the front door and out the back entrance to see some view too. All the doors aren't drawn in yet. And then we currently have a screened in porch left of the entry door on the south side. I'm thinking we don't need two screened porches and we can just make that an outdoor area with the grill. There is a door to get there from the kitchen at the bottom of the page. Does it seem better knowing we'll have multiple spots now? Rhome, thanks! When you say keeping tasks separate, I'm interpreting that to mean you think it's okay to have the short side of the island facing the living room so it's not as a part of the main room. That is a relief. To the right of the kitchen is the dining and living room. To the left of the kitchen is an outdoor space. I'm also soooo glad you commented on which side to have the cooktop in relation to the cleanup sink. I've been spending weeks and weeks trying to go through this in my head to decide which is most beneficial (currently my cleanup sink is not near either ... don't get me started!). I was never quite sure but I was starting to think exactly what you advised. A friend told me you have a great kitchen and fantastic organizational sense so to know that you wish yours was oriented differently carries a lot of weight. I had actually looked up your kitchen and saw your cooktop wasn't on the long side of your island so I thought, oh, I guess it doesn't matter! :) So thanks for mentioning that.