I just don't understand the need for people to incite negativity. That would be called "caution." It's the job of people who write safety codes to think what could go wrong, not to think "What could go wrong?". An optimistic attitude could mean that more people will die. Building and electrical codes are written for a reason. I think I recall reading that the bathroom is the most dangerous room in the house (in terms of accidents). If you want to hang a non-code-compliant light there because you aren't interested in finding a safer way to make it a "sanctuary," then you are the one who has to deal with the consequences. These can vary from none, to the requirement that you remove the light when you sell your house, to (admittedly unlikely but possible) a lawsuit from the person who bought the house with the fixture in place, and whose kid was electrocuted by the chandelier. You have folks here who call things as they see them. You may not see it this way, but they are concerned about you, your family, and those who may later buy your house. They probably think that's more important than being soothing, upbeat, and positive. If that means they're "inciters of negativity," then so be it. I'm genuinely sorry that you are upset by that.

Yes i do! I actually have some design sense and wanted to be an interior designer. I installed new Espresso color thick carpet in my whole condo, i loved the color, sheen and the way it hid the stains. Lol im bad i know, but i had light color carpet before and it was a mess to keep clean, to the eye. Only problem was when i installed the Espresso color carpet was that my walls were bright white and i didnt like the contrast, the dark brown per say and the white walls, just looked odd to me and bugged me, Finally i gave in and put color on the walls! Reason i say all that is, if the walls are not white, go for it. Maybe re think the color of the walls as to me, the silver of the washer and silver of the walls might clash with one another, if just not the perfect, complementing shades. You could do a creamy rich, off white, like vanilla. What i did in picking the colors for my living room and bedrooms was, i went to home depot, i picked out all the colors that immediately caught my eye. Then i took home two or three of the same paint swatches home, taped them together, then taped them on the wall to be painted, in different areas, to see which color i like better. It was better for me than using one swatch of color and trying to decide on a big blank white wall. So i used three and taped them together and made the swatch 50 % bigger! Its up to you in the end and what you like. But i do think the espresso will work very well with the silver, or graphite appliances, just a little weary on silver walls. I used the Berh paint and primer in one, used less coats and the color came out very nice! The green is, chinese jade and the yellow is, pyramid gold. I had to put into mind all the colors i already had, the carpet, my couch, coffee tables, dining table. This is also what i did, i fine tuned into what colors i wanted for the walls, then i took other swatches, for instance, i have white baseboards, so i got a white swatch, i have a orange couch, so i got an orange swatch, i have espresso carpet, so i got an espresso colored swatch, then i put them all next to the color of the wall swatch, to see how well they all mixed together! And to me, the colors couldnt have fallen into place any better. Also made my condo feel more like a house, more like me, more personlized! Imagine the walls in the photos before, white! What a big different a little color can do!

I know someone that polyurethaned her construction grade pine stairs. I don't care for it, because the pine looks so cheap. I think I'd rather see an opaque stain used to hide the knots and pine grain. Last Fall I pulled the carpet off of my own stairs. I had a better situation than weedyacres to start with, because my stairs all have a nice "overhang" on the treads. I removed all of the staples and then sanded each step with an electric sander. Of course the sanding made a huge mess, but we had drywall dust everywhere at that time anyway. I'm not sure the sanding was necessary so you might want to be guided by your concern over the sanding dust. The next step was to create a smooth finish on the pine by using a floor filler compound. This stuff just fills in all the staple and nail holes and all of the many grooves that are naturally in the rough pine. It's very easy to apply and drys in 30 minutes. I used a good oil based stain blocker/primer which dries in a half hour. I painted the risers with a regular white wall paint. Finally, Benjamin Moore color matched the Butterscotch Oak floor I had just installed in my living room. I bought a gallon of their floor paint, which was about $75. The floor paint is super thin so it was necessary to put three coats on the treads. Even with three generous coats, I think I used less than a pint to do 6 treads. The beauty of the BM floor paint is that you can walk on it after 30 minutes. When I say you can walk on it, I mean you won't track the paint anywhere. It's like the paint is totally bonded to the stair surface in a half hour. BUT, the top side of the paint, remains tacky for as long as a week. This means you can walk on it, but it grabs every single thing off the bottom of your shoes and holds it. It pulls the fibers right off of your socks. Obviously whatever it grabs, is going to remain in the paint, discoloring it and affecting the finish. A lot of people will use a quarter round molding to cover the gaps between the tread and riser, etc. I hate quarter round. I just filled in the gaps with the floor filler and I think it looks fine as it is. I estimated it would cost me about $100 per stair to put hardwood treads and risers on. I thought if I used good hardwood, I'd end up covering most of it with a runner, to protect the wood. If I was going to use a runner anyway, I thought I'd try the paint, because so little of the stair would show. Well, I never expected the paint to hold up to our traffic. Now that it's been three months and there is no sign of any wear, I'm thinking of skipping the runner. I LOVE the painted stairs and I love not having to use a runner. You'll see some scuff marks on the risers. I never understood why I heard people talking about this problem, as I was sure my feet NEVER touch those risers. Guess what? Your HEELS hit the risers when you are walking down the stairs. I will be repainting the risers soon. The scuff marks you see, happened when the paint was not fully cured. Finally, my stairs are practically orange. They are a perfect match to my oak floor, but the color looks strange when it is paint. I may change the color at some point. Here is a link that might be useful:

Thanks for all your comments everyone :) Marylut i dont think the wall is actually blocking any light really, its just that with the door closed (even though the room is light enough) its really quite obvious that there is a closed door (if that makes any sense!), we thought maybe with the wall taken out it would just open it up some more. Jan, yes an exterior balcony. The balcony you can see from the pictures wraps around to behind the wall behind the fire place and meets up to a sliding door which opens into the dining area. Elizabeth, it would be amazing if it were a lake! But its actually just the view of the valley and houses below us. The lounge connects back to the entry way. So if you look at the first photo "View from the front door" just to the left is the door into the lounge (that goes down a few steps to meet the dining room again. There isn't anything under the floor, its a stilt home so underneath is dead space where we store our fire wood :) gnu36- If we swapped the dining room and lounge then the area where the dining room is now will have two lounges as in the picture you can see little stairs going up and that goes into what is to become a formal sitting room. Sonni1- thank you, we absolutely love it and are so excited at all the possibilities of improving it! Zmith- thank you too, as above we do love it! Thank you for your opinion, we would definitely need a balustrade otherwise I dont see how we would make the stairs safe from the dining room side. So all in all, i think the question has been answered- we will not be consulting a pro as it seems unlikely it would make as huge a difference as we hoped and its probably better to spend our money in other areas. Thanks again for everyones comments, despite feeling some of them were pretty rude and too abrupt than necessary i will definitely be posting again if i need some more help with other areas. Thanks all.