I think the first question is: do your tiles look dated? Be honest. Unfortunately tile looks don't seem to stand the test of time. We had the 12x12 tile in our kitchen demo-ed. I would say that it is VERY awful...we were moved out while that was going on. The demo-ing only took a couple of days though. In our case the tiles were extremely bonded to a concrete subfloor so I would guess it was worse than usual. OTOH, floors are too often neglected in kitchen renos. It's sad when people spend crazy money on cabinets and appliances yet leave dated floors in place. It's not good when you can *tell* that they left the old floors in place. My flooring budget (replacing the kitchen tile with hardwood and refinishing the hardwood in dining/living/hall areas) ended up being 25% of our kitchen reno budget! It was a huge hassle as we had to move everything out and we are a family of four. We had to find alternative accommodations for a week because the flooring area included our home entrance. But I would say it was a critical element to the kitchen reno and I have no regrets now that I'm on the other side. I don't imagine that grout refreshing will be simple or cheap either. $3000 sounds like a great price to me if it includes demoing the old grout. I would add to that budget the cost of moving items and staying out of the house during the demo part. I do love a white kitchen. Personally I would not choose a white floor to go with that - I agree with comments that a mid-tone would "ground" things better. I think earth coloured ceramic would look great if they were VERY good quality - some are quite vulnerable to chipping. I also love this look: If you're considering resale, do consider alternatives to tile if you do not live in a warm climate.

I do this all the time. The secret is to use a software program that has a "stitch" feature. One of my scanners came with a NewSoft Presto! software package that works great. You just scan the two sides of the page (in preview scan, pick a point on the page where the two sides will meet, just slightly overlapped)and open both at the same time in the Stitch window. You indicate which is the right and which is the left side. The software then positions a little box at the edge of the left side and you drag the image in that box over to the right side and line it up and click - the two sides will be joined at that alignment. Another software package that came with my Epson Digital Camera just has you drag and drop files side by side into a grid and it will do all of the pattern matching automatically. It is really designed to merge photographs into panoramic views, but works on any .JPG file. It's calle ImageExpert. My "stitched" files are all I used on my scrapbook website HTH Here is a link that might be useful: Sue's Place - My Virtual Scrapbook

Yes, I asked the question on this forum I don't remember exactly when (maybe at the beginning of the year) and that is a kind of answer. You need to scan your layout half by half with a little area in common. If you want to print your page, you need abour 300 dpi resolution, if you just want to display on a screen, 150 dpi are enough! Then, once your 2 parts are scanned, you need to use a software like Photofinish or AdobePhotoDeluxe. You open the 2 pictures and one more empty. Then you copy each part in the empty one and adjust one part on the other. With Photofinish I just do that using the "magnifying -glass" function, but I think that some software have a special "stitch" function. Sometimes the 2 parts of the picture have not exactly the same color and you have to adjust the brightness before to "stitch" them. It is not very difficult, it may be time consuming if your processor is not rapid enough or if you have not enough memory! At last, you use the "crop function" to remove some extra part you don't want to keep, and the "resize function" to adjust the size. The last thing to do is to save the picture in the right format. I hope this will help you, and that my poor english is OK to be understood :-) Joelle from Lyon, France You can see some of my page on my site! Here is a link that might be useful: La page du Scrapbook'coeur

I was confused about your bedding; I think it looks fine in your photoshopped pic! I thought you were using the patterned fabric as a comforter too; the cream comforter instead seems to balance the black better. I included the 60-30-10 link for you to figure out your colors---you've got gray, blue, cream, black... (or is that gray really more blue?). That link will help you figure out what to paint black and what to paint cream. If you're using your cream as the "10%", then her cream comforter is probably all you need in that room and painting any furniture "cream" would offset the percentages. As far as the size of your room and the amount/size/finishes of furniture---I don't think that's an issue. I've read a designer's book that purposely uses large furniture in a small room so the focus is on the furniture itself instead of realizing how tiny the room is. I would think you would be employing the same "trick". Another trick that I read to increase the size of the room is your furniture placement. When entering the room, if the eye can unobstructedly see the furthest angle/corner of the room, it will appear larger. I think Ttodd's personal rooms are inspiring. Similar to your daughter's inspiration photo, Ttodd's LR makes use of neutral textures, like the basket weaves. Your daughter has great taste and so refined!