Love Bee's black ceiling and the painted bathroom floor. I've made some departures, for me, in going with a new chandelier for my dining room that has a lot more crystal than anything I ever thought I would like, and I love it. Then I put a large, contemporary crystal chandelier (a disc, basically) in the master bedroom. Love it. Painted the dining room blue when everyone else was going red. My appetite is ruled by what is on the plate, and if that doesn't stimulate an appetite, why eat it? Not one person has refused to eat because it wasn't painted red. But it is a calm environment, so maybe there is less digestive upset after? ;-) Probably my most different thing was selecting three cabinet finishes and door styles for my kitchen when two was not often done. I have two hardware finishes and styles, two faucet finishes, two counter tops -- and it doesn't look wild at all. We also reduced the doorways on one wall from three to two and used the space to put a hutch with fridge drawers and a counter for our espresso machine in the breakfast room. Normally, I would not close an exterior door, but we had one into the garage right next to one to the driveway and another to the driveway at the other end of the counter run. We think we corrected a builder blunder. My porch was painted blue, but it has faded and now that it is time to repaint, I'm going to go darker.

Ditto Fori verbatim on the cabinet decision! I can barely see the difference between them, and if one will save you $800, go with that one. My kitchen has a 45-degree angled wall just like yours does, and I have frameless cabinets as well. In the entire kitchen, I only have fillers in the corners of the 45-degree angle space, and by the dishwasher drawers because we needed to fill up that space. The fillers by the 45-degree angle are about 2-3". Part of that is because they needed to be sure the drawers/cabinet would clear eachother, and part is because our cabinets were not custom and we had to conform to the 3" increment restraint. The fillers were no bigger than what we would have needed if we chose framed cabinets with full overlay doors. Far and away, we gained MUCH more space by using frameless cabinets than we lost to fillers- especially because almost all of our base cabinets are drawers.

Well, if your house style isn't leading you in a particular way (or, restricting you to a certain style) I'd say you're on the right path by just pursuing the things that please you. Personally I always enjoy visiting homes with eclectic style, because they're usually owned by interesting people. I think there are far worse things than mixing items from different periods and styles, especially if they're meaningful to you (like your mother's antiques.) So what do I do when you come to the actual substantial pieces I'd saved for and purchased that I just plain no longer like!? I'm going to disperse of some of these items via Craig's List, as you have. And I'm working up my courage for a giant garage sale. (How is your queen bed "too big to sell?") My rationale is, I enjoyed the anticipation and the purchase, and owning them for a while. So, I got that value out of them. Now, some don't work. So, shall we beat ourselves up about changing our minds about what we like? No, we shall not, because changing means we're growing, and growing is a good thing. Growing means we're aware, alive, having fun, and becoming something new. And besides that, it's totally unfair to your queen bed to make it live in a house where it's not truly loved for its angular maple goodness. Set it free, and let it find happiness. And besides that, when you sell your queen bed, and give somebody a heck of a deal, you are singlehandedly stimulating the economy and encouraging commerce. And goodness knows we need that. Why, it's almost your civic duty. (Being able to rationalize anything is a very handy skill, have you noticed?)

Some of this seems to be dependent upon age/stage of life. As empty nesters/business owners who travel a bit, love new/great restaurants, wonderful live music/entertainment/awesome movie houses that serve dinner/drinks as we watch- this was it for our latest: 1. Location. We are 1.5 miles away from downtown Austin TX straight in front, a few blocks from the SoCo enterntaiment area (to the right) and the SoLa restaurant area, Zilker Park (music festivals) four blocks to the left. We also live on a street that is nearly completely isolated. Almost NO traffic, save for us on the short street, Very, very quiet. And? We wanted a custom, ground-up build. A neighborhood where this is happening, that we just did. 2. Low crime- Eh? We have a bit of crime of opportunity, in this City neighborhood, but are also very protected by 1) being very aware 2) having a security system wired into local law enforcement/fire/EMT that is nearly impenetrable. 3. Great neighbors, mis of people. Our neighborhood has "OGs" who have been here for 50+ years (mostly Mexican, in ethnicity) others who have been steadily moving in within 30, 20, 10 and 5 years. LOVE this place- enough children around so as not to be weird, but mostly just grown ups who want to live quietly. 4. Proximity to airport, for business travel, Quite literally, 10-12 minutes away, door to door. FANTASTIC for the days of "day trips". 5. A view Both my architect and contractor were a bit skeptical of this, but I KNEW it was there. Today, we can see- end to end- Austin Texas downtown skyline from inside second story. Schools? Eh? Our very expensive property taxes are spread locally AS WELL AS through out other areas of TX. For the first time in my adult life, I ignored schools in favor of all else I wanted. And in case you think this is a"bad resale" idea? You're nuts. 1-5 in our city center are at-home professionals who travel, want close proximity to city (but still quiet) want all the easy access to restaurants/live entertainment, in quiet and Google Fiber etc? If I were smart, I'd run to the Google campus today, sell tomorrow :)