Thank you ladies. That is what I thought, but I love the look and was hoping????? Oh well..... Lynn, we're in Tennessee. We have a horse farm that my dh calls LaFonda (hence the name). For those that don't know, LaFonda means "end of the trail". The two rooms you see together are kitchen and the other room I'm working on. Then where I'm standing in the picture is what I'll call a dining room. Not really a room, but more like the eat-in part of the kitchen and a walk through area from the other side of the house. We like it there because we can watch the TV (off to the left) easily when we eat dinner in the evenings. Here is where I was standing (please ignore the mess!): These three areas are all part of an addition we put on about 6 years ago. Mostly diy, and still a work in progress. Originally, the room you see in the picture with the white refrigerator (temporary spot until the basement was finished enough for it) was supposed to be the dining room, but since the other location for the table works, I decided to make it more of a hearth room. It works great when we entertain because this is where everyone hangs out. I currently have a couch and piano in there, but the couch is too big. And one of the kitchen (not sure where the gray stripe at the bottom came from): I'm moving towards a rustic elegance feel in these rooms. It's such a slow process because we have so much going on at one time.

We have moisture issues so couldn't do wood (plus, we live on a ranch and hubby works around heavy machinery ALOT...our floors take a real beating!)...so, we went with travertine in most of the downstairs (we put *super* cushy carpet in the side tv room). I LOVE MY TRAVERTINE! It never looks dirty. We laid it in a three size versailles pattern which gives an "old world" style feel to the house. It's indestructible and everything cleans up perfectly...even spilled paint. We carried the travertine up the stairs...only on the riser part of the stairs..used the ultra cushy carpet on the step part. Kitchen was done in a dark porcelain tile with texture...also love it..never looks dirty, isn't slippery, cleans up so easily! Yes, the floors are hard. I just wear good shoes/slippers and no worries.

happyday321.....first, if you decide to do a fan, I would not do a light kit (kind of similar to the tacky look of a white ceiling fan imo). FWIW, we didn’t install any ceiling fans in our new home (I would rather have a nice chandelier), BUT, we’re in a rental now waiting to finish up our build, and there are ceiling fans here. One of them is in a vaulted ceiling (14 feet up), and I have to say that it does help to cool thngs off for those feeling a little flash of heat now and then :) Four cans in a 20x22 foot room seems a bit skimpy to me. I am by no means a lighting expert and the amount of cans I installed in my greatroom most “normal” people would consider completely overkill. The room is 20x20, and we have 11 cans (and that lighting doesn’t include the center chandelier :) ). Two cans are directed towards the fireplace wall so let’s not count those, so that would be 9 cans. If I remember correctly, my lighting guys recommended 6 in our greatroom. My ceilings are only 10 feet and yours are 12, so that needs to be taken into account as well.

Why did you stop with the ceiling? And not give the windows proper casing to complete the look? I'm curious how you handled the ceiling on the other end of the room over the staircase and circular balcony.