Thanks for your responses. It's a fun topic, isn't it! I should point out that there are scores of fabric manufacturers that were not represented here, so who knows how true my post is! But Beacon Hill, Stroheim, and many more that I saw are industry leaders. Oceanna--upholstery fabrics used to follow by a few years, but now its right on the heels of the clothing industry. BTW, I'm loving your cottage posts. mqmoi--Sorry I don't know how to find Sequoia by Richloom, but I'll but there is somebody here who can. tinker--I think the rust/spice colors are pretty neutral and easy to accent, as already stated; depends on how light or dark (saturated) you go. meg711--what happens where I am, is the distributor shows the newest fabric samples "to the trade", and these samples are constantly coming in; some stay longer than others. For someone like me, who goes maybe 3-4 times a year, the changes kind of jump out more than if I went weekly or daily like some clients. The new stuff filters down to retail showrooms almost immediately, where they are added to the samples that already exist, and their staying power can (and should) be a lot longer there--often for years. Sample books are almost immediately provided to the retailer as well. So you basically see the new stuff fast, but generally not on the same huge scale. In other words, there are no real surprises lurking in the background to blindside us; just general directions that get tweaked constantly. I was also thinking and wondering about browns when I left the place, because I didn't really notice browns. Maybe I just spaced it. Someone else may know the answer to that. At any rate, they didn't jump out at me, but I wasn't really looking. Syllabus--I agree about the greens. Some of them were very pretty though, by themselves. I think for traditional, country, cottage, shabby chic, etc. that sage green will always have a place; as well as any other color that you would find at, say, Williamsburg or other places of our heritage.

Thanks! Yes, we may add a shelves or an upper in the NW corner at some point---it's not in the plan for now because we're doing extensive HVAC work in that back corner and the contractors we've talked to have all been somewhat fuzzy on whether they'll need to steal wall space there or not, so it seemed wiser to see how it pans out first. Ideally we'd like to store dishes there if we end up with enough space, though. (Right now they're programmed for the cabinets directly across the kitchen from the d/w, which is okay but not ideal.) @arlosmom, we did look at putting a prep sink there when someone suggested that for an earlier version, but ultimately decided we couldn't sacrifice the counter space since the kitchen is pretty borderline on that already. Our household is also a little odd in that we try to save and re-purpose cooking water (we live in an area with no summer rain) so I am generally fishing pasta out of boiling water rather than pouring the water itself out---hopefully that will help! There will be a pot-filler over the stove, though, which will help a little, and this is also one reason we went with a larger sink than we'd originally planned.

Hey Kitchendetective and Oldhousegal - thank you for thinking of me/us! Very sweet of you both. We're okay. About 5 months after his heart failure diagnosis he looked and felt better and we were sure our big checkup appt. was going to be good news but they said not enough improvements and they want to put in him a defibrillator w/ a 3rd wire (lead?) as a pace-maker. His EF# went from around 20 to 30 which was better but not good enough and it needs to be 40 to avoid having this implantation. BUT my husband said no - he's freaked out by it and is worried our insurance won't cover enough of it and he's afraid he'll get accidentally shocked around certain equipment, etc etc. He said he wants to wait and give it more time of continuing to slowly up the dosage of the meds and to keep eating healthily and all that. He's convinced himself he doesn't want to become permanently dependent on this foreign object if he doesn't have to be - but he doesn't get that he (according to the doc) is at the "has to" point. The doc said if he could get better without such assistance (device) he would have by now but still, my husband's being really difficult. :( But the doc also said this procedure/device would raise his survival chances by a small enough percentage that it didn't convince my husband it was worth it (and yet to me, going from having a 4-10% chance of dying to a 2.5-5% chance of dying is plenty reason enough as well I'm rather desperate, aren't I?!). The weird part about all this is that he's not very overweight, he just turned 43, and he doesn't smoke or drink or live an unhealthy lifestyle and never did (although I'm sure sleep apnea plays more of a role in this than the docs are aware of...i'm just sure of it! Thank goodness he's now using that cpap machine). Oh and then a few weeks ago - this is so ridiculous - his appendix burst and he went septic and had to stay in the hospital a whole week after surgery! Can you BELIEVE it?! Just crazy...the docs say they don't think it has to do w/ his heart and all I could say was "yeah, no of course not - it only has everything to do with his BAD f'ing LUCK! Grrrrr... well anyway, you asked. ;) The tricky part for me right now is that I was already struggling w/ depression (TMI - sorry) having 3 kids and feeling overwhelmed plus lack-of-career worries, etc. but all the health stuff has made it all a lot worse and I'm not doing anything about it as I should (no meds, no shrink as of yet, not really even taking care of it naturally e.g. exercising) but just plugging away at the day to day obligations, trying to knock things off my to-do lists without making the kids feel too neglected! I keep either waiting or the other shoe to drop or else hoping for some big positive change of some sort - ANY sort (!) - but I'm just too busy to make miracles happen for myself if that makes sense - and too tired to imagine how I would do that, frankly! But one possible piece of good news is that first night in the ER, the ER doc looked at a couple of scans and remarked that he was surprised his heart didn't appear as big as he thought it should look. He said it looked normal. We both were so happy to hear that but are trying not to get our hopes up cause so far every time we think things might work out we just hear they're not, you know? So sometime soon here he'll go in for yet another echocardiogram to see if there's any truth to this. Last thing we were told (about 3 or more months ago), it was still enlarged. Why this discrepancy I wonder, unless he's actually improved a bit OR it's just that it was a non-cardiologist doesn't understand and it's inconsistent scanning (different kinds of tests)...I dunno. Sorry for this long response! And thank you again for asking - and for allowing me to get a lot off my chest! ;) Oldhousegal - I'd sorta ruled out the uppers being the same gray but now I'm thinking about it again just cause I'm sort of over the look of lowers being a separate color and I also think it would be daring of me. ;) I mean it's a small, darker kitchen and you know how they say not to pretend it's something it's not, and that if it's a light room make it lighter and if it's a dark room make it darker? I know what you mean about the coldness though. However the very warm, almost orange-looking fir floors should help...plus I have lots of splashes of color with decorative pieces (towels, pitcher filled w/ utensils, etc). I could also keep lots of other parts cream or white, e.g. the floor-to-ceiling cabs and/or the window above the sink. But all that said, the gray and cream look isn't exactly uncommon anymore is it! You know it isn't when you start to see it in more than one commercial about Pine Sol or Hamburger Helper. !!! : - / Jmcgowan - thanks for the links! Beautiful stuff there!!

Thanks but please don't mistake this for a complete design; its just a story and a half idea that lowers the mass of the house and avoids a big hipped roof on a 2 story box. Its got a long way to go to be a house design.