Woven wooden shades would add a really nice texture to your room. You're right, I have a pair of double hung windows behind my tub. I've just ordered cordless cellular shades that will be 2 on 1 headrail and have the top down/bottom up feature for privacy and a view of the trees outside. I literally have to climb in my tub to adjust the windows or shades so they probably won't be moved very often. I'm planning to accent with purple so I'm hoping to find fabric for a valance to tie it all together and bring a softer texture into the room. You must be so anxious to be in your new home. I've never built a house before but I'm sure it would be both exciting and overwhelming.

creekylis-I was in the same conundrum as you and couldn't find pics for the life of me. It was so hard to picture how it would look but I took the chance and I am happy that I did. I went from a very dark kitchen and everything in my house is dark stained wood and there is a LOT of it! The PO was a finish carpenter(carpentress) and it shows. I love stained wood but enough was enough. These pics are of the only item besides the fireplace that is original to the room. My DH would not let me swap out the windows and therefore the conundrum was created. Please ignore the two different tiles on the ledge-our reno is still incomplete. The large bow window replaced a slightly smaller one that literally took a hit in the demo and had to be replaced(i should have told my GC, who is my DB to have another accident over in the corner windows, too :I am happy the way it turned out in the end, but alot of angst over this decision. Good luck on making yours. Unfortunately the pics at photobucket are much darker than on my monitor and maybe if i e-mailed them direct to you it would show better? If you'd like send me your e-mail and I can do that for you. HTH Here is a link that might be useful: Painted Wood Trim w/stained windows

Beautiful tile pictured here from all! When I've done tile it seems the grout line ends up being slightly wider appearing than the spacer, perhaps since the edge of the tile is slightly curved, so I think with a tile as small as a subway tile, you may not want to go as big as 1/4". I was told by the tile store that the larger the tile, the larger you can go with the grout line if you want that look, but that generally, the smaller tile look best with smaller lines. Then of course, there's granite tile that uses razor blades for spacers even though they're usually 12" tile. So, I guess it's a lot the look you're going for. I've used DeLorean gray grout and putty and both work well--so much easier to keep clean looking than white grout. Your project sounds like it'll be beautiful! Good luck!

There may be others but a while ago I posted in a few different threads about the IKEA Billy bookcases we fiddled with and made look built-in. lousy close-up but it's all I have to show the soffit / crown and the decorative pieces we ran (vertically) to cover where the bookcases met each other (and the wall on the left) Our ceilings were (former house) 8', so by attaching crown & homemade soffit to join the top of the bookcases to the ceiling and decorative moulding to hide the joints of the individual bookcases (plus some luan skin on the sides) we were able to make them look built-in. We used the chase between the ceiling and the top of the bookcases to run wiring for (also IKEA) puck lights. Recently someone wrote that they were disappointed with the sturdiness of the Billy bookcases. I can only speak to my experience which was that they were AWESOME! Granted, we attached ours to the wall, but I never, ever had any doubt about their construction or abilities. And they saved us so much money!!!