kswl. I think the thing that appeals to me about grommets are the way they stack so neatly w/o taking much space. We have wonderful views out of most of the windows, so I really don't want to have anything that takes away from the views. Even if I had window coverings in our great room, I don't think I'd hardly use them for actual privacy etc. We love both the daytime and night time views. Annie, I wasn't able to find our hotel room online, but I have googled many "hotel rooms" just for ideas. I comb whatever pics I can check out. Actually I do have something in our current bedroom that I love. We have a very traditional electric fireplace that we purchased a few years ago. It is a beautiful piece of furniture. The person who purchased our previous house, wanted us to sell it but we declined. I didn't have a "home" for it in our new place at that point but I knew I would find one. Well that home ended up being our bedroom. I love it so much that I had decided even if it didn't "go" with whatever I picked out, I was going to keep it. Besides it being a beautiful piece, the "flame" actually looks more real then our gas fireplace in the great room. Between the beautiful view outside and the fireplace, it feels like a sanctuary when the lights are off. When the lights go back on, it's a whole other story. We have been trying for at least 12 months to find a headboard & 2 nightstands. We would find a headboard we liked but the nightstands weren't right at all, or we'd find the nightstands and the headboard wasn't right. So last night we ended up going out looking at just headboards. We came across one that we've admired for awhile but the nightstands as I said weren't right (when the headboard was nice). It happened to be in the front of the store, and we both kept admiring it. We went throughout the store and found another headboard that we sort of liked and another which a PART of one I kind of liked. I was just trying to see what was out there new if anything. I had to remind myself, why I didn't get it, since they've had it for awhile. The only reason was because of the nightstand. The headboard is simple but elegant, it gives the bed a strong presence in the room, even with the views, and it goes wonderfully with the fireplace. We are about as unimpulsive as you can get (we over think all purchases) but we surprised ourselves and actually purchased the headboard and new mattress & boxsprings. The bed will be delivered tomorrow! It's a bit scary just taking the plunge (if you consider 12+ months a plunge) but I think we are going to be very happy with it. We've never had a king sized mattress, so now we need all new bedding. I've got some ideas of what I want but will go through the task of getting an idea of what I want like Bronwynsmom directed. I know I like a layered look, solid colors and very good quality linens. I will look some more to see if I see anymore of a trend. I'll see if my DH has time. Luckily it's summer, so we don't have to hurry out and get anything for warmth. We can get by with a queen comforter for awhile. Does anyone have any favorite linens you like? or good webstores? We've always purchased mediocre quality before, but recently we've been exposed to nice quality bedding, and I'll never go back. I'm going to have to kick some decision making up into high gear since our previous queen mattress is now in our master bathroom where we'll have to sleep until we have enough bedding to sleep in our bedroom. My DH is so cute. He pulled out some candles to make it as nice as sleeping in our master bath could be. With a DH like that, a girl has to make the bedroom that much more special.

The light rail on the cabinets is now 17 1/2 over the counter top and the bottom of the MW is 15 1/2 over the grates on the range. That inch actually made a big difference. The company did correct the many mistakes that I pointed out. If I had said nothing, they wouldn't have either, even though it appears they knew about it. The contractor or owners never came here at the end of a day to see what the subs had done. I was never told that they saw something wasn't done right and they would fix it, it was always up to me to look at the job that was done while I was at work and to then tell them what I saw. Then they would fix it. They basically finished the job yesterday because I insisted that the kitchen be done for Thanksgiving. At the rate of work being done one day a week, it could have gone on until Christmas. BF and I just started doing the finish work ourselves. The gas line to the range still needs to be adjusted so the range can slide all the way in, the hood isn't venting through the roof, cabinet doors are unaligned, none of the handles were attached to the drawers, molding is missing, etc, etc. But it was the witching hour (4pm) and they had to leave. They'll be back in a couple of weeks to fix the bigger issues, we'll do the rest ourselves.

mjconti I confess that I also like W2W carpet, I have fond memories growing up with it in the 70s (shag!!). Not necessarily in every room (growing up we had carpet in the bathroom and that was gross). In our place we have hardwood everywhere but carpet in the bedrooms. Not shag. Low pile, high quality wool. The master even has a fun pattern. The master is huge and I don't think we'd have been able to find an area rug to fit. We are a shoe-free house and we run the Roomba every other day. That said I'm going to defend gray: our place is decorated in sophisticated shades of warm and cool grays and beiges, with navy and chocolate brown and accent colors including soft yellow, green, orange, and white walls. We stained the yellow oak floors a medium grey that has blue/green undertones and is very pretty. For us the decision was easy: we'd lived with beiges/warm colors/golds for so many years in the 80s/90s. Then switched to a "riot of colors" -- bold rich jewel tones, red sofa, etc. That was fun for awhile, but we were tired of it!!! Maybe we were ahead of the trends? We were ready to go back to quiet neutrals, but not the beige/orange/gold/yellow oak again. What's more, the sunlight our new place gets just doesn't work with too many warm colors --- which is how it was decorated when we bought it--- the place ends up looking like it's literally on fire! Toning it down with a grey palette works, and does not look cold at all.

Hi RtPaige03 that's a ridiculous price for removal of an insert. That's why we decided to just go for it with a builder. You are right tile options aren't good but for the shower I was only going for a larger (4x16) subway tile straight horizontal stack so thankfully they had these as level 2. For hacksplash thou I love the marble mosaic or subway that looks handmaid, with movement to it. So pretty. Builder doesn't offer this that's why I want to do backsplash myself. Our house will be in myrtle beach area (murrells inlet) we are moving from jersey and it's just a 1 story 4 bedroom and 2.5 bath, so everything on concrete. But we decided this morning we will just go with the floor from builder, the carrara look ceramic 12x24 and get it over with