JP/Jogging Path - GY/Green-Yellow Hue Family MR/Mountain Road - GY/Green-Yellow Hue Family M/Meditation - G/Green Hue Family HG/Homberg Gray - BG/Blue-green Hue Family PB/Plum Brown - RP/Red Purple Hue Family JP, MR, M + HG. Hue families are GY, G, and BG. This combination works because color-wheel-wise hue families are right next to each other. JP, MR, M + PB. Hue families are GY, G, and RP. This combination works because Plum Brown from the red-purple hue family is a complement to Meditation from the green hue family. Keep in mind, in architectural paints there is a 10 step color wheel, not a typical 12 step so the color relationships align differently. Bottom line is both colors work with the existing color scheme - comes down to preference and which one looks best in the room. You are definitely on the right track because the existing color scheme could use an additional color like Homberg or Plum Brown to 'round it out' and make it more cohesive, interesting.

Try posting this on the Home Decorating forum.

Yes, I don't like or respect these people as described, although I do at least understand businesspeople's refusal to guide customers to important emotional choices--lots of opportunity for blame later on there, especially with people who don't really know what they want, like you. You're not in shape to make these decisions quite yet, but can be. With the available choices limited, my decisions would have been made within a half hour, 10 minutes for choosing my favorites while trying them out in sunlight, artificial light and shadow, 20 for playing with any other possibilities anyway just to make sure--because I know what I like and don't. You should put them off for a day or two if necessary (how they feel about it is no more your concern than your eventual satisfaction with your choices is theirs') while you educate yourself about what you really like, or just become reacquainted with your own preferences. Sit down with kitchen web sites and magazines, as many as you can get (splurge at the magazine rack), and print and tear out pictures of everything you like. Grab all the cabinet brochures you can find. Don't try to match the choices your builder offers--at this point, choose EVERYTHING you like. Bulgarian castle, California beach house. Be sure to include pictures of other rooms with fabrics and colors you like. Look your piles over and sort them out into types (most of us are drawn to more than one look). You'll see patterns of what you like--figure out what it is you like in them--cabinets darker than floors? Floors darker than cabinets? Strong contrast, medium contrast, or harmony with little contrast? Tendency to neutral browns, or golden or reddish? Choose those pictures that are possible for you in this house and discard the rest--without regret. The choices you have this time around are very nice. By now you're learning what you need to know to make these decisions--or maybe have just erased the confusion too many choices at once have caused. You still have to tackle the backsplash decision, which ideally should be made before everything's finalilzed. What do your pictures say you like? Drama, via movement or contrast, or both? Serenity? Big tile? Little tile? Horizontal? Vertical? Diagonal? Urban-suburban sophisticate? Family cottage? Etc. Now that you have regained control and know you won't be making some awful mistake, enjoy!

I know it's discouraging when your picks get criticized. And the last thing I want is for someone's vision for their kitchen to get nitpicked down into the lowest common denominator of "safe" choices. So before I say what I think, I want to ask, what is YOUR vision for this kitchen? I don't mean specific choices, but what kind of overall look you want to achieve. Can you post some inspiration pics? I ask this, because I really can't tell where you are going based on your choices. The floor is quite rustic, the cabinets are solidly transitional, and I would probably put the counter in that category as well. Both backsplashes, this one and the one in the previous thread, are quite modern. I think you can choose two of the three (modern, transitional, rustic), but trying to include all three is to make your kitchen elements fight with each other. I think that is why people's reactions have been negative. It's not that they don't like the individual elements, its that they don't pull together for a cohesive design. I liked the backsplash in your previous thread much better than this one. Mosaic tile, in my opinion based on about a zillion pictures of kitchen that have them, are really hard to get right. They have so much going on that they don't brook any competition from the other elements in the kitchen. You need a very low-pattern counter, and they are better with slab-front cabinets. With your choices, all three of the cabinet, counter, and floor will fight with the mosaic to some extent. In the previous thread, Anglophilia was the odd-person out for calling out your cabinet choice as the problem. If you really want a modern looking backspash, then I'm going to agree. Replace the orange-toned shaker with a slab door with a cooler, darker stain that plays well with the floor color and I think it could work with the old backsplash choice. If you want to keep the floors and cabinets, I'd still tone down the orange in the cabinet a bit to work better with the floor (or warm up the color of the floor to play better with the cabinet), but I'd choose a rustic or transitional backsplash. Both of your counter choices look fine with the floor and the cabinets, and with the earlier backsplash. I don't like either with the current backsplash choice because the mosaic tile works best with a solid-color (or close to it) counter. Try not to get discouraged!