I actually think it is very regional. I live in NY and attended many very elaborate weddings where I had to shell out a $300 gift ($600 for close family) for a gift. I think the idea is that you have to cover your plate and then some. My DH's friend is a wedding photographer and he charges a minimum of $12K for a wedding and he is booked solid. Around here, giving money is a norm. The registry is for the bridal shower and I have seen many registeries that include plasma's and $400 place settings. I have several girls at my job getting married and they are spending between $25-$40K. It's outrageous if you ask me and quite stressful because you want to attend these events but they become very unaffordable! In addition, for the amount of money you spend on a wedding, you can put a down payment on a house! When I got married 7 years ago, my parents offered m $20K to pay for the wedding. We looked at several places that cost $150/person and it just didn't feel right sending all that money on one day. We opted to have our wedding a restaurant instead of a reception hall and invited 75 people (much to the chagrin of my parents who wanted me to invite 200 people). My bouquet and cake were from Costco. I had one maid of honor and advertised at a local college to get cheap photographer/videographer. My dress was off the rack of a bridal store and I drove myself to the church. I ended up spending about $7K and the other 13K was part of the down payment for our home. I will admit that my friends and family were generous despite the simple nature of our wedding which I was extremely grateful for.

Peg board is a good idea and I'm not really sure what kind of hooks are out there either, so I'd have to look into it further. I looked at pegboard today, the very heavy duty ones are kinda spendy for a 4 x 8 sheet. I'd probably go with the 1/8 inch material and reinforce with a 2x4 frame. I had actually considered using wooden doors securred together. I found a bunch of louvered bifold doors today at a local salvage place. (habitat for humanity resale store)and I thought I could attach a shelving track to the doors for adjustable shelves. So where the chairs would go, I could use some type of utility hook screwed into the door. I think even though the space is small that with creative use of space and organization of the items in there, it should work. Keeping in mind that this is a trial run and I can always take a bigger space if need be.

lakemayor, when you put the cursor on the picture in photobucket a drop down box "should" appear. On My screen the first thing under the picture is an empty box- click on the empty box. A check mark will be in the box now. Scroll down to the bottom of your photo bucket page and on the right will be four blue boxes. Click on the one that says "generate HMTL and IMG code. This will take you to another page of boxes with codes inside them. left click on the second box, the code will be highlighted in blue, then right click- a box will open -select copy. Then go to your forum post and left click, this will open a small box -select paste. Your post will contain the code. scroll down your post and select preview message. Your picture should show up then. This is how I do it, hope it helps! Di

I looked at the paints you posted and if you want to paint green above the sink and stove, you will need to have it directly relate something else in the Kitchen scheme. This would mean you would need to find a glass tile that has the green in it or go with a totally neutral backsplash like the 4x4 tiles you are showing with the glass tile. A viewers eye will look for a relationship between the paint color and the backsplash or other features in the room and not find it. Even if those colors exist in an adjacent room, the relationship needs to be clearly there in the Kitchen. In this case, I don't think matching accessories will get you there either. Now for a little design editorial. I think the basic design concept that you should bring colors from one room to another throughout the house is a good one, but has been overused. The theory is that having each room relate makes the house flow. Whether that works or not really depends on a lot more factors. The premise is that each room should not be a completely different color, yet in some cultures it is the norm to paint each room a completely different color and looks quite wonderful in context. Okay, enough of that. In effect, you do have a color relationship between your rooms already and it is your basic neutral Khaki. There are some advantages to keeping the backsplash completely neutral if you want to use accent paint colors. You can change your color scheme very easily without having to change tiles. Basing your scheme on the neutral allows you to paint accent walls while the overall effect remains pulled together. Either choice is a good one. It's what works best for you. If you decide to keep the glass tile as you originally selected it, and still love the green, try to find somewhere else to use it. I used my green in the Laundry room.