Have you seen Elizpiz's kitchen? It might give you some inspiration on what to paint and what to stain. There's something about your elevations that make me think of her beautiful kitchen. Here is a link that might be useful: Elizpiz's finished kitchen GW reveal

We agreed to restain the floors to bring the shade closer to the stairs color. We will do 50% Jacobean with 50 ebony, which will tone down the very brown floor. As for risers they will get painted white. Today is a better day. I am not used to rift quarter sawn, but replacing 2000 sq ft of floor is not an option. Hopefully, it will grow on me. Maybe with the darker stain I won't mind it as much. The stairs steps is very zebra looking, but by painting the risers white that too shall tone down a bit. Is it true that the second coat of stain doesn't get absorbed as much as the initial coat. I don't want a black floor. Has anyone done the 50/50 mix?

Yknow, IMHO, I wish we all could drop the "D" word from our vocabulary. If we love it , if its well made, if its functional - then a place can be found for it, period. In other words - your china cab is just fine, and it does look good on the side rather than viewed head on. That said of course we like our rooms freshened up now and then - but I think you can jazz it up in other ways incl choosing a new color ILOVE greens/browns/tans, but the pea soup color Im kind of tired of. (or so it looks on my monitor anyway, which has been known to be wrong.) Definitely think about going deeper richer. Dont know if Penny's or Anglo's deep dark colors are good for you but it gives you an idea at least of what deeper/richer could do for you. If all else fails maybe you could just take the living room color and just go a few steps darker/more intense with it. Let the DR be cozy and intimate complete w/ a big china cabinet - why not? The DR should relate well to the LR, and that would be one way of doing it. Minor quibble - I would think about that wall space where the china cab was - is there a third pic that could fit in there? With cabinet moved, that wall becomes very significant. Not liking just the two pics , needs to be 3 I think..... Or some other wall decor or arrangement .... minor thing, so perhaps just wait for the inspiration or right thing to come along.

It is real wood. The shelves I will still decide on based on what I do with the cupboards. I originally wanted all of it white, but if I keep the cupboard plain, I will use plain wood for the shelves. Branson4020, I definitely want to change the base. It is thick and unrefined, but the width is seen quite often in this area due to several floods that have overtaken the lower level floors in the rainy seasons. The ocean gets quite testy. So contractor's standard sizes tend to overcompensate. So using standard measurements for the attic included that, or they charge me more. I am saving up for the kitchen that I will build from scratch. I was thinking of maybe just getting a solid base to fit the cupboards, but I am open to suggestions? This is my first house revamp. The attached picture is just to show what it looked like vs where it is now (the above pic). So any further advise will be great. As a new house revamper I predict I will learn a few more lessons the hard way. This house is quite a challenge as it feels like the previous owners took every shortcut they could find. There was one wall light at the stairs of the attic, the rest had no lights. I have removed the light that did nothing to assist with lighting the room, and will decide on proper lighting once the cupboard is done. Their electric cables were protruding in loops from the floor, and peaking out at the bottom of the floor in the lower room. They ducttaped open electricity "holes" in the wall where a box or coverplate should have been. Beyond the wall at the back in the lower picture (where the cupboards are now) they had loose planks of different lengths, woodtypes and widths collectively forming some type of table and the orange wall in the before photo ended a foot below the sliding door. The rest of the wall was pure white and the holes next to the hidden geyser in the middle that guides its pipes outwards was a foot wide and stuffed with newspapers and ducttape. So I learned. But this makes me very open to advise for future traps I might not see.