Feisty I have beat you to it, the bathroom downstairs is also brick and I think it is fabulous! Will post pictures, we have a new khaki countertop and Handy Guy is painting the vanity a barn red next week. Having a soft yellow/ gold shower curtain made to hang behind the (new) arched opening over the shower/tub and cabinet person is making enough paneling for the fireplace wall to front the side of the tub. And we are ordering antique finish brass faucets and tapes for sink and shower, yay, the existing satin nickel ones look incongruous with the brick. We may install siding on one long wall of bathroom also but I only want Handy Guy to do this, not the GC's guys. ( I am anxious to get them out of my house, no one seems to own a pencil and paper, they come back endlessly, to do small jobs they could have done in one call, this is true of the electricians, carpenters and drywallers.) Lol, I have even ***pretentiously*** coined a new descriptive phrase for our basement style to encompass the brick floors, siding on interior walls, black wrought iron rails and sconces, etc.... renovated carriage house.

Yes, the hood is a Zephyr Tamburo. 400 CFMs. A piece of sculpture! So yesterday I ran around looking at tile. I picked up 8 more of the bumps and kept looking. At one point I had a vision of medium gray glass tiles, medium gray grout, grass green walls. I picked up a quart of grass green, a couple of other paint samples, and came home. Taped a sq. ft to the wall. A resounding NO. They looked brown,which would be ok except that if the soapstone darkens (which it will, I suppose, eventually) the tiles will really not work. It just looked off. Bummer. Last night I was up till all hours doing a glass tile search to find something that was less than the $27-39/sq ft I had been seeing around here. Will report in at the next round. The handles and shelves went in today. The first thing I did was start to fill the bookshelves. that horrible Minidata notebook is full of recipe clippings I will never live long enough to try. Need to organize it and maybe do something with that ugly notebook cover. A shelf of art books and then we'll see. Second thing I did was put the tea tins back on the shelf over the sink where we are used to finding them. That shelf will be usable stuff, the ones above, display for my antique tins: a counterpoint to all the sleekness. I printed out labels for the 5 mailboxes: one each for DH & me, one for my mother - whose bills I take care of, one for outgoing mail, and one for random stuff. I will have to nag DH to sort the mail instead of leaving it in a pile on the island. Grrrrrr. New leaf. Two weekly papers came in today: the one I haven't read yet is in my box. Finally, I picked up the barstools I had ordered at Crate & Barrel. $89 each and they SPIN!! What fun! I can sit and read my cookbooks at the island while I contemplate what I am going to make for dinner, instead of standing at the counter and reading. DH can sit with his laptop or pay bills at the island instead of upstairs in the 2" of space on his cluttered desk. He will do this while I am on my teaching trips, no doubt. The kitchen table will be a while in coming, although we ordered it. Thanks for the input on the tiles; they work en principe - mais pas en réalité. On continue. Tomorrow, if we are lucky, the crown molding goes up and maybe the light rail. Off now to get a decent night's sleep - or what is left of the night.

Amanda, I think the heart pine will give you enough contrast with your other woods that it would be fine for the floor, if you want a wood floor, and it'll certainly go with the Colonial house. If you want tile, which will be colder, though very easy to care for, consider 1'x2' French pavers. They're a light terra cotta, and very traditional in kitchens. The antique ones are very expensive, but there are new ones of the type being made now. For authentic Colonial, I think a gray slate kind of look would be more on point, but it would make your kitchen look dreary, whereas the light clay look of the French pavers would be cheery and should go with your big brick hulk. :) Even though you've spec'd a lot of wood, with the painted section, and the windows, and the brick fire surround, and the flow into the dining room, I think you have enough relief that you can go a bit wild in the kitchen with the woods and get away with it. Especially with all the different kinds and colors you've chosen, which provide you with contrast and interest. You have the whole warm side of the color wheel (i.e., analogous colors) -- to throw some logic at you. :) Floor: yellow-brown (I'd go natural on them. They'll age to a really nice honey color.) Cabinets: red-brown Island top: dark red-brown Beams: charcoal-brown Hood: orange-brown For hue and brightness contrast you have the silver-gray stainless counters and the white cabinets. You can do window treatments whose main job is to bling up your black hole windows at night. There are slat blinds that have art painted on them, for instance. You could do a lacy shade. Or something baroque and flocked. Shades are pretty inexpensive, and can be changed out when you get tired of them. And they don't get into the soup, and hide pretty well when they're up. You can even do clear vinyl and let your kids paint on them for each season, then wash them off and start over. One of the great things about all of your colorblocking is that you don't really need a lot of bling to make the kitchen lively. Add in the detritus of family life and you're there. Plus, you also have hardware (i.e., jewelry) to choose. You can go simple and demure, in a silvery color to go with the stainless counters, but you could do art glass or wild granite knobs, colored resin bar pulls, Anne At Home theme hardware, or whatever suits your fancy. Some hardware looks dumb in some settings, but I think your kitchen can take a lot of interest without feeling overdone. I mean, how much bling do you want?

Thanks for the replies. I will be shopping some sites tonight. kitchendetective, I really like that rug. Was hoping to spend a bit less, though, since I need two. But that is a look I'd like. mamorella, my dogs would think they'd gone to heaven if I got sheepskin rugs! My DS/DIL have one in my GDD's nursery and it is luscious. I don't think it works for my room, though.