It happens all the time. A homeowner will choose a tile or type of flooring and the installer will install it without thinking. Tile and flooring is not something that you can just throw down and make it work and come out even especially on a remodel. Here's why.. You start out with all of the subfloor heights even. You decide to install 1/2" thick wood flooring in all of the rooms but the kitchen. When new the builder compensated for the extra height when they tiled the kitchen. Say for example 1/4" thick tile was used. The builder would add 1/4" thick plywood to raise the floor to where the tile would be even with the wood flooring.. Fast forward.. You come along and decide to redo the kitchen floor with 1/2" tile that calls for a 1/4" underlayment. You now have 3/4" total height to deal with. The old 1/4" tile is removed. Minus 1/4 from 3/4 you have 1/2 left. !/2" will be the difference in height between the old and new. So now you have three choices. Go back and find a tile or flooring type with a thickness that will come out even when fully installed. Rip out all of the old wood flooring throughout the house and start over. Add a transition piece and learn to live with it. Myself I would have did a lot of measuring and after if you wanted to go with the tile you choose. Then I would have added something like a Shur-Trim transition piece under the tile and onto the wood flooring.

I would also add rock wool insulation.

I'm in NYC also, I adore climbers and I have a mandevilla, a cardinal climber, a clematis, a passiflora and 3 climbing roses. As long as you have sufficient sunlight (6+ hours), water diligently (containers dry faster than in ground planting), and fertilize (weakly and weekly), all of the above will thrive for you. Unhappy plants attract bugs and are less likely to fight them off. All the aggressive climbers will need heavy feeding to grow and flower abundantly.

Thanks, SJ. Yellow has never been one of my favorite colors and there is a lot of it on the wall. I was considering the multi-yellow though, but now that I've learned it's been discontinued, I think I will go with the light blue. Thanks for the mock ups, ilikefriday!