I'll take a stab at answering. I think subways are very popular right now. I think it is a very versatile look, but if you are concerned about it being too trendy, I think it is well-suited to a home built when subways were in common use--for example I know that in my area subways were frequently used in houses built in the late 30s, 40s and early 50s (usually a deco look). So subways in those houses don't particularly look trendy, or at least not necessarily like a current trend. I can't speak to quality or value, but I sure like the looks of the medicine cabinets in Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. I don't think there is a bathroom gallery. Catherine

I think when the MLS listing shows "contempory" or "traditional" or "ranch" it's just lumping various styles into one of those general catagories. They aren't architectural styles themselves. And of course the interior style may differ from the exterior since someone might have a traditional house and have some mediterranean fetish and put textured walls or for insteance instead of an ornate wood fireplace mantle surrounded with brick they may just do marble there or something that is viewed as more contemporary. As for me, I think my house is a colonial type, plain box with steep roof slope, four stories including basement and an attic you can walk around in for a ways. It's almost awkwardly too tall but sort of impressive how the top of the roof is up about 50' from the ground level in the back. They don't really call houses here "Colonials" though. One of the more recent architectural styles I see poping up in new subdivisions is the craftsman style. Of course they really aren't craftsman style just with some finishing touches that make them a little different. And around here they call any one story home a "ranch." And there appears to be some stigma that goes with that unfortunatly.

I have to chime in with KSWL about fenestration. This is one of my biggest pet peeves in modern construction. If you look at older homes, especially larger, nicer homes, you will see that, from all elevations, the exterior window patterns are pleasing to the eye. When you try to do this, you see that it is quite a puzzle to create the rooms you want with the windows where you want them, and then put them together with the flow you want, and yet still have a pleasing exterior. It is a puzzle that, too often, today, people do not even try to solve. I see a great deal of "facadism" in construction today ... make the front look good and be damned the rest (I would even put brick or stone fronts in that category, but I digress). Ask yourself this. Purely aesthetically, what size window would you put in the spot where you have have a powder room? Then, draw it in. Now figure out if you can make it work. Are you assuming a sink has to have a mirror over it? Why can't a sink be in front of a window (with proper insulation of course). Or why can't you use shutter for privacy, etc. I know it's a PITA, but IMHO houses that can accomplish this by achieving a pleasing pattern of fenestration really do look better. I know it is hard, but I feel the same way about the MBA (I am guessing) window that sits over the turret in the back. The mass of the turret is so large, that the tiny window is particularly lost looking. I would at least try to reconfigure there so as to accommodate a larger window.

So I've since found out from my builder that the 9' doors that I need won't actually look like those I just posted, but instead ... here's an example of the simpler one from above, Option 2. I do not like it at all. I have no real need for a 9' garage door except for the fact that I didn't pay attention to the garage when reviewing my plans and now that is what I have, so it's too late to change it to a nice 8' door. With 12' ceilings downstairs -- we opted for the taller doors for scale, but I don't think it was necessary. Is the 9' door design as awful as I think it is???