I agree that it’s fine to have different finishes in different areas. I have brushed nickel in the kitchen and black/bronze in the basement. If I ever get around to remodeling the master, I’m considering brass or polished nickel for that. Good luck with the remodel!

Jessica, if you have 3 rowdy boys with a wild imagination paint the foundation walls and concrete floor and leave the ceiling out, add a few ceiling lights with protective grids... It will save you money and they can get lose and have some fun down there :-) If they more or less like playing video games, etc more on the calm side ask them what they like in their room it's more fun this way. When I was building my house one was 12 the other one 8, my wife was also going crazy picking blinds, nice paint for the room, etc ( I told her to leave bare sheetrock lol) the minute they moved in, they had pictures and stickers, etc all over the place you couldn't see the paint, the blinds had to be replaced with curtains because they ripped the strings, etc... The rooms have been redone twice already so don't go crazy. Good luck.

We just installed LVP in basement (we are in the Midwest so not in hurricane territory) with a cork backing and I am surprised how “warm” the floor feels. The air temps are in the teens here and the floor is not cold at all. We did use cellulose to insulate walls and ceiling so it is warmer than before but so far very happy with the warmth factor.

I'm not sure of the intracacies of your plan, but in any case, it doesn't appear like you'll have much opportunity to correlate a seamless design with the upper story. However, I wouldn't be so concerned here. I think if you can limit the focus on the garage door wall facade, and direct focus to a more substantial facade in-line with the posts, which then focuses attention upwards towards the 2nd story - if that is achieved you can do anything on the garage door wall face you want. So here could be a method to doing that - symmetry is not a goal in itself, but here it is a good solution because the deck beam supporting post locations make a mismash soup of the strong upper floor roof, post, and window symmetry. Since they can't be moved, making sense of the locations with faux columns while directing attention upwards makes the back wall more transparent.