You know, it's interesting how when we travel to Europe or other parts of the world where we can see buildings several hundred years old, we appreciate the patina of age on things -- plaster showing its age, cracked stone paving, irregular color in brick, time-worn marble, and so on. In the US we always want to rip out the old, solid materials because of minor imperfectons, and replace them with something shiny, new, and not necessarily of equal quality. If there is a real problem with your tiles -- undermined and unstable surface, safety issues, water leaks, or whatever -- sure, replace them. But otherwise the older material has charm that pavers do not have, in particular with your nice brick wall and balusters. You'd want all your architectural elements to be speaking the same language.

Okay - thanks everyone for your input. I spent the evening looking over my bills and refiguring the math. I went with a the heat pump for several reasons. #1 - Going complete electric. The furnace was our only gas appliance and once I did the math, I realized it wasn't worth it to keep gas supplied for that because of the delivery charge. (see #2) #2 - in our case, electric heat is cheaper. See if you follow my math: Electric - Right now we pay $0.10 per kWh with an additional 12.77% service charge for various things. I didn't include the sales tax in this calculation b/c it is the same for both services. With fees, that would be $0.1135 per kWh With a HP at 9.5 HSPF, we pay $11.95 per million Btu. Natural Gas - Right now we are paying $0.74 per therm with a $27.99 per month delivery fee (which is standard for our area). Based on last years usage: 12 months x $27.99 = $335.88 We used 681 therms x $0.74 per therm = $503.94 Total cost of $839.82 / 681 therms = $1.23 per therm with fees. With a 95% Eff furnace that ends up being $12.95 per million Btu. Since we are improving the insulation, our therm usage may go down by 30% but our monthly service charge wills stay the same so: [(476 therms x $0.74 per therm) + $335.88 delivery charge] / 476 therms = $1.45 per therm with fees That would drive our our cost per million Btu to $15.26 So . . . Heat Pump Unit and Furnace + AC Units at equivalent efficiency cost the same thing - $5,200 Heat Pump costs $11.95 per mil Btu for heat Furnace costs $12.95-$15.26 per mil Btu for heat I am assuming the cost to cool will be equivalent since both units will use electricity and are equally efficient. In addition, I get $400 rebate on the heat pump. #3 - Our mild climate. While anecdotal, I talked to several people in my area with heat pumps and they were very happy with the temperature control in their house. No one had trouble with the heat pump keeping up during our short and infrequent cold snaps. #4 - Heat pump is greener. Natural gas is a fossil fuel and while fossil fuels are also used to generate electricity, there is always the opportunity for renewable energy sources to be introduced. If we get a NG furnace, we are stuck to only using fossil fuel as an energy source. So . . . that is why I decided on a heat pump. And yes, we are addressing all the insulation and air sealing issues so the house will (hopefully) not be drafty and conducive to heat pump being able to adequately heat our home. Thanks everyone!!!

One person at the SW call in color experts stated it was fine with the correct lighting and the other said no as extra white is a cool white and divine white is a warm white. I know there is no umber in the extra white but I thought it was one of those colors that went with anything. "White" paint colors aren't white. They're all colors and each belongs to a hue family. All of them. And just like more chromatic (or colorful) colors, the basics of color relationships to create harmonious color schemes still apply. It gets super challenging when a paint color is so close to a "true" white that it's hard to detect any hue at all in order to distinguish what hue family it belongs to. The same can be said for gray and black. When paint colors are so near a true neutral gray or black, it's really hard to identify hue family. Color relationships and schemes hinge on hue family, right? So if you don't know the hue family, it's impossible to purposefully coordinate colors. Colors of white, however, have an extra, added challenge. When the chromaticity (amount of colorfulness) is super low, the tiniest differences (in hue, value and chroma) matter a lot. I'm going to use three colors as an example: Sherwin Williams' Pure White, Extra White and Ceiling White. They all belong to the Green-Yellow hue family. Seriously, they do. Not kidding. Take a look at the numbers: 7005 PURE WHITE Hue 0.87GY - Value 9.3676443 - Chroma 0.327977538 7006 EXTRA WHITE Hue 5.11GY - Value 9.448748589 - Chroma 0.224431425 7007 CEILING WHITE Hue 9.12GY - Value 9.297595978 - Chroma 0.222947001 Don't panic. The image attached below plots these differences on a color wheel: -Pure White has the most chroma and its position within the hue family, 0.87GY, is closest to the neighboring hue family, Yellow. -Extra White is in the middle in terms of both the amount of chroma as well as its position, 5.11GY, in the Green-Yellow hue family. -Ceiling White has the least amount of chroma. Therefore, it looks the most "grayed" and "cool". Plus, its position of 9.12GY means it is very close to the neighboring Green hue family. When you compare Pure White to Ceiling White, Pure White will look "warmer" than Ceiling White. Again, Pure White is close to the Yellow hue family and Ceiling White is close to the Green hue family - which explains why Pure White will look warmer. Looking at the image below, it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? As you might imagine, comparison and context is crucial when it comes to colors of white paint. Next, let's take a look at Divine White: 6105 DIVINE WHITE Hue 1.36Y - Value 8.870009422 - Chroma 1.16972518 It belongs to the Yellow hue family. It's position of 1.36Y means that it is very near the Yellow-Red (or orange) hue family. So it is indeed a "warm" white and will likely show as "warm" in most contexts. Divine White's chroma is more than 1 and that indicates that seeing some chroma or colorfulness should be pretty easy. If you can pull a chip to look at it, you'll see this is true. So, what about Divine White and Extra White together? 6105 DIVINE WHITE Hue 1.36Y - Value 8.870009422 - Chroma 1.16972518 7006 EXTRA WHITE Hue 5.11GY - Value 9.448748589 - Chroma 0.224431425 They work just fine together and here's why. Extra White's position of 5.11GY means that it is * just close enough * to Divine White's hue family of Yellow to work. Much farther past that point of 5.11 and the color combination of Divine White and Extra White would be iffy at best. Technically, Pure White would be a better choice to go with Divine White because it is closer in proximity to Divine White - but, again, Extra White is close enough and should be perfectly fine. Testing the colors together in the space should easy any worries. If you're still with me, you've probably already put it together that in comparison, ceiling white being so close to the Green hue family, is too far away from Divine White in the Yellow hue family to work well. In summary: - You can find a "white" from every hue family - maybe not from just one paint brand, but they are out there. - Sometimes what matters more than hue family relationships is the white paint color's amount of chroma or colorfulness. The color could be knocked back so close to a "true" white that the factor of hue becomes diluted in context of adjacent colors. It depends. You have to be careful. Your eyeballs might not pick up any trace of hue from the paint chip, but the space's inherent light will "see" it in a test swatch. This is why testing colors in situ is crucial. - Don't ever look at the paint formula to try to determine anything about a paint color because the formula means absolutely nothing. - When it comes to warm and cool, it truly all depends. If someone tells you the "rule" is to not mix warm and cool colors, they are full of crap. Mother Nature mixes warm and cool and so far it seems to be working. A picture is worth 1,000 words.

Basic coatings and Street Shoe XL are some big names with big price tags with BIG advantages. And to be clear, Streetshoe produces their own make of stains....and it is often best to use the stain that goes with the Finish. Water based polyurethanes have fast cure times. That means you have full use of the home in 7-10 days. Oil based finished (the one's that STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN) can take 31 days before you have full use of the house (and that's in the summer when the doors are OPEN FOR 12 HOURS PER DAY). So...refinishing hardwoods one section at a time is doable. You CANNOT use the floors that have been freshly worked....so you need another EXIT while this is being done. And once the first section is done and cured (2 weeks for water based StreetShoe = NORMAL) you then have to move everything onto the new finish and then do that last little bit and live with THAT for 2 weeks. Splitting the job ELONGATES the frustration of the job. Two weeks turns into 4-6 weeks of "being unsettled" as well as 4-6 weeks of controlling the animals on the floor. Splitting the job won't matter for the COLOUR....it will matter for the SHEEN. Every time we mix these high-end finishes (they are often 2 component products with the "sheen" being held in the "hardener") we run the HUGE RISK (I mean you have a 99.9% chance the sheen will be DIFFERENT) of having two different sheen levels in the home. The *BEST way to do this (most professional way...the fastest way...the least disruptive way) is to do this all at once. Yes...you will have to find a way to store all the property. Yes you will have to find a place to stay during the finishing and cure time...but it means a 2 week disruption rather than 4-6 weeks of half living half sitting in a corner hoping not to hurt the floor. And 4-5 coats is a bit much. But I'm wondering if #3 is talking about applying a SEALANT (coat #1 after the stain) and then 3 coats of finish. This would equal 4 coats. I've heard of this. The normal process is 1 coat sealer + 2 coats finish...The more coats of sealer/finish the longer it takes to reach a full cure. Don't worry about minwax/duraseal as they are the same company. Minwax = oil based stain colours whereas Duraseal has the SAME COLOURS in a water modified version (same colour chart with the same names). Only you can decide the fate of the floors. The fastest, easiest, most efficient, most beneficial way of doing this = all at once.