Hi: We are redoing our kitchen with white perimeter cabinetry, and will have white crown moldings etc., in kitchen and nook. We have an adjacent family room that will have stained wood trim windows/crown molding/built-in shelves etc. We will go with either cherry or walnut for the stained woods. The kitchen island will be stained wood. Floors are red oak which will be stained dark to match the island. My struggle is that between our eating nook and the family room will be a series of 3 millwork arches. (Arch 1 opens to a doorway to another room, arch 2 is the walkway to the family room, and arch 3 has a row of counter-height cabinets forming a divider between the nook and the family room.) I cannot decide whether to make the arches stained wood, or painted white... The Nook/Kitchen area has a standard-height ceiling, so if I make the arches white painted, I can make the arch openings higher, because the top trim of the archways can be the ceiling crown. If the arches are stained wood, I need to make them shorter, so there is a space between the white crown molding in the nook and the arches. (I do not like the look of having the arches stained with the ceiling crown being white, if the ceiling crown forms the top trim piece of (touches) the arches.) The adjoining family room has a taller ceiling, so its crown molding will be well above the top trim of the arches when viewed from that side. I like the idea of having the arches higher, but wonder how white arches will look with the stained cabinetry and trim in the family room. Does anyone have a mix of white kitchen/nook trim with stained trim in an adjoining room? I am having trouble visualizing. Thanks for any pictures or advice!

I went out one last time today, and found another rug. Now I have 2 "finalists", neither being without faults! The new choice has a mostly very light golden oak background a little lighter than the floor for both the main field and the main border--in other words, it seems to be a bit too much of the same thing. It has a black edge, black in the background of the two 1-1/2" borders on each side of the main border, and black scattered about in small doses throughout some of the rest of the design, including part of the medallion. Most of the medallion is a rust color that is close enough to the henna in my other rug that it looks ok. There's very little green in this rug. It's a beautiful densely knotted rug. Negatives-- this rug doesn't look good with the paint (we're not repainting!) or the furniture, and when the sun shines, watch out!-- it really looks like a bright gold, and it costs more. Other than the intensity of the light colored background, this rug seems to balance with the other two rugs as far as the overall look, and it looks better at night. So if we never had the money to replace the 9x12, I wouldn't feel like the room is out of whack. The "black" rug--the other colors in it look good with the paint, the coverings on the chairs that go around the table on it, the present sofa, the other rug in the same room, and the floor. The only negative is that it makes that part of the room so dark, especially at night, that I can almost feel the floor tilting down over there! Also, it seems to be too much for the blue (which looks gorgeous in the daytime, and dark at night) in the DR. If I choose this rug, it seems like my only choice to balance all three rugs would be to get a dark rug to replace the 9x12, and I really don't like the idea of 3 dark rugs. annz, the design of all of the rugs is somewhat related. The experienced daughter of the owner of the decades old place where I got the one rug has been very helpful, given the various constraints I have in choosing this rug. If you could see the color this floor makes the rugs appear, you'd probably understand why I'm giving it the importance I am. Your email did not show up on the screen, BTW. sujafr, thanks for the explanation for posting pictures. DH said he'd try to help me get some pictures loaded some time tomorrow. ideefixe, I'm not looking for antique tribal rugs, just handmade ones with traditional designs. Your suggestion to have a carpet company make a rug for the time being is a good one, except that I need the rug by Sunday! Thank you all for your posts. I hope I'll have the pictures up tomorrow. Anne

@Kristel Quintana - if your joists are too warped for tile, they are probably too warped for vinyl planks. If this is the case, I would recommend sheet vinyl instead. And NO sheet vinyl does NOT have to be the ugly sort. There are some stunning visuals in sheet vinyl that do NOT look like wood. In fact, you can get some STUNNING slate look floors that would look amazing next to the bamboo and the cabinets. Please, please, please assess your "flatness" quotient for the vinyl planks. Double and triple check your floor. The best way to do that = remove the existing vinyl. The existing embosed sheet vinyl needs to come out anyway....you might as well do it to see what your subfloor flatness rating sits at. Flooret is like all other planked vinyl....it needs SUPER FLAT ("perfect" comes to mind). If you realize your existing subfloor isn't going to cut it, I HIGHLY recommend looking at a sheet product to keep your preparation costs down. In other words, replace "like with like".

If possible I would run the same wood right into your kitchen. But, if you really want tile or some other surface maybe something in gray tile like one of these.... I am looking at what would go with your current floors but also work with your new kitchen colors of gray and white.