I think the three colors on the left blend together very nicely, but the gray sink strikes me as "One of these things is not like the other". The others register on the tan scale, while the sink is definitely gray. I am in love with Blanco Silgranite sinks, and it'd be a shame to buy such an expensive workhorse and have it not match. I wonder if a white sink would be better. Or, let me ask this: Are those arabesque tiles white-white or off-white? I would choose the sink to match them. I am soooo in love with arabesque tiles. Hardware? Satin. Definitely satin. Your colors are soft and smooth (good, since you threw out the desire for a "calm" color scheme), and satin blends with them. Shiney would stand out, and I see effective hardware as something that should "fit in" rather than "stand out".

Thank you Summerfield! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back. We've been out of town for a week. I am a mother-in-law now! After the wedding, we went to Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. Along the way, I looked at houses, and noticed some differences in houses in other areas. In my area, most of the houses that are about the same size as mine, have siding above the brick done like mine. There was a house in St. Louis that was almost exactly like ours with brick color, long front porch, and shutters, and they used a dark sand colored paint on the siding, and white on the trim, with darker brown on the shutters. It looked great. The house was also about the same age as ours, but the colors made it seem a lot newer. Most of the houses in Kentucky had brick all the way up the gable. Tennessee had a diving board between the brick and the siding on the gables, like in jakabedy's first photo. While I don't think it's possible to add a bigger face board there, I do think it will work to just paint the one we have in another color, like in Summerfield's drawing. It would help if the board were wider than the siding, but since that board can't be changed without redoing the siding, we'll just have to see what difference the paint will make.

Hello all, thank you! Cawaps, I've got a sample of the Formica Grass, and IRL it looks nice with the tile, but only nice. What I'm hoping is that something will really wow me. I would settle for even being somewhat wowed, haha. I wonder if stainless would work, as Jterrilyn suggested? In and of itself it's too cold a color, but maybe if it's surrounded by yellow it would warm up? Does anyone have pictures of stainless counters in warm-colored kitchens? We have stainless right now and functionally speaking it's excellent, particularly with the nautical edges, but I'm so SO not into grey. The only place I like grey is on cats. Or maybe dogs. That's about it. Of course, our stainless looks as grey as possible because our cabinets are grey and the walls are putty-colored. (The whole abomination is due to Tasteless Previous Owners with No Common Sense... see rants on other threads.) Black or charcoal grey I'm fine with, but not dull cloudy-day medium grey. Lavender, the black counters in Mama Goose's kitchen look great. Our first thought for counters was soapstone, but then we got a quote and I realized that my brain refuses to process any sentence that contains both the word "countertop" and the words "six thousand dollars." They just do not compute. :-) It's not about being able to afford it, it's about refusing to pay that much. The ghosts of my grandparents rise up and remind me that they grew up in the Great Depression, and then they say, "It's a COUNTERTOP. It's just a COUNTERTOP! You could lay BARE PLANKS across the cabinets and it'd work just fine! Do you realize what else you could do with $6000 etc. etc. etc." So that's what we're dealing with here... :-) And Lavender, I'm a total sucker for jadeite and also for carnival glass. Colors! Give me colors! Love 'em!

I spent quite a big chunk of my childhood living in Argentina, with a similar culture and lifestyle to Paraguay. We also had a live in housekeeper with her own bedroom and bathroom, but years ago people did not entertain in their kitchens, so there was only one kitchen, which was a separate room with doors. It seems the open concept house, with most of the action taking place in the kitchen, has also become a concept for those in some areas of South America, hence the need for 2 kitchens. Did you know that many of the mainland Chinese immigrants with larger homes also have 2 kitchens. The second kitchen is quite small and called a Wok kitchen. All the greasy/smoky cooking is done there. You will see these quite often in CA. Since the parilla is going in an "indoor" room you will need to use a vent hood above it to remove smoke and grease. I miss a good asado de tira and mollejas! Any plans for a basement? We had one under part of the house in Buenos Aires and it was a great space for storage and my father had a small workshop set up for himself. The floor in the entry was glass block which let light into the basement area. It was a very modern house at that time. You could do much better with closet placement in the bedrooms and storage (pantry, linen closet, utility closet). The maids room needs a closet. What are you storing in room "deposito"? I know that in many area of South America closets are done as furniture pieces that buyers will add after they buy a house, but since you are building it would make sense to build them into the plan.