I think if what you love is cream-colored cabinets, you should talk to DH about it. Find pictures of creamy cabs with a dark counter (soapstone, granite, quartz, whatever) and show him how gorgeous it is. He might surprise you. And if he doesn't, if he's obsessed with stained wood, why not a very light stain--say, silver birch with a dark counter? That could look really nice (example at link), and it might be a great compromise where you want creamy cabs and he wants stained wood. **What about gray painted cabs? There have been some threads on here lately with them and they are beautiful.** I have gray painted cabs in a kitchen that faces north and doesn't get enough light. I cannot recommend AGAINST them strongly enough. Don't do it! Don't do it! We're remodeling our kitchen and I guarantee there will be no gray cabinets anywhere. In combination with the relative lack of direct sunlight, it just makes it so GLOOMY. And also, in a kitchen that doesn't get that much light, dark cabinets with dark granite is just not wise. It would suck out what little light there was in the room. It would almost certainly feel like a cave. Dark lower cabinets with LIGHT counters and light (cream?) uppers could work really well, but not dark cabs/dark counter, and especially not dark uppers. There are kitchens where those combinations work well, but not kitchens that don't have enough light to begin with. Here is a link that might be useful:

I've been following your post because this past month, hubby has been preparing me for the dreaded "R" word (relocation). We'd just finally finished our basement and I used COLOR for the first time and I love it. I also just painted our front LR-turned-"library" (light sage). We had all blandish light smoke gray walls throughout, but I was adding in sages, pumpkin "spice", and SW Blonde. I think I'll hold up on my other paint projects in the main living areas and let them remain neutral. Now that I know how to paint, I don't think I'd let one or two bright rooms scare me (if/when house-hunting), but I wouldn't want to have to paint a large area--like several rooms/halls that flow together--soon after moving in, so if there are other houses in the market that would be other than this scenario, they'd have the edge. I just saw in your last post that you live in Durham. Small world--it's the RTP area that we would be relocating to from central IL. I think your area has higher home prices, so that scares me. I'm in my dream home now, I can't stand the thought of leaving.... :-( Ah well. If you have any links to good realtor sites that have pics, etc., in your area, please share! Thanks. Good luck with your upcoming relocation. When it's what you want, things usually go better. Like someone mentioned above, it's time to stop thinking of the current home as "yours" and to distance yourself from it--changing color back to neutral will help with that. When you do this, something about the "energy" of the home changes (weird, I know). I like the LR after Lindy photoshopped it. I also think I would do the kitchen cabinets all the same (not light on top, dark on bottom). What about some "antiquing" of them--in the cracks? Can the kitchen be a different color from the rest of the "fun space"? I have a friend who did her cabinets cream with some glaze in the cracks to antique them and then painted her walls a ruddy color (terra cotta-like). It was gorgeous and did well with the neutral colors of the rest of her rooms, but still gave her some "pop". A good muted orange (since you like that color) is Laura Ashley 'Spice' (at Lowes)--I'm not an orange person but fell in love with this and used it in a basement area and planned on it for my kitchen. I love how wrought iron looks against it. It seems very popular right now. Good luck and have fun! Tracey

Well, I've drawn out about a bazillion rearrangements, and out of those my husband and I selected about three of them for me to play around with a bit, to see if one shouts that this is the one to refine. I have to take breaks from this process often or I get too stressed out. Trying to keep it somewhat enjoyable. Graph paper speaks. It can make it obvious when the floorplan closes the house in too much, blocks views, etc,. Sometimes it shows that despite a room looking large, there is no good place to put couches, etc. because of walking paths to other rooms. The style house we are going to build is the old Florida "cracker style" home. It has a fairly steep pitched roof (metal), and a FULL wrap around porch. I don't want to bump out into or take away from the porch in any way. Most of the year we are able to use our porches. I've dreamed of this porch for years. It's more important to me than the sewing room, or anything else. An idea as to how we want the outside of the house to look like is to go onto the crackerstyleloghomes.com site and look at the "Fowler" That's the porch I want. I've come to the conclusion that I really don't want a loft. For one thing one never knows when they might break a leg. The other is I'm not getting any younger. After speaking with a few people that have lofts, many of them generally stop using them after awhile. Maybe it's the isolation thing. My husband and I also do not care for the extremely high vaulted ceilings that results over the unlofted area. The other issue is, lofts adds a huge, huge amount to the building costs. I'm afraid of having a half completed home if we do a loft. I know we have enough money to build a single story. I think. If we are very, very careful, and eat beans and rice. It's much cheaper to increase the base footprint, or build another structure than to build a loft and finish it off in nice wood. Some people will leave the floor joists exposed on the lower level, but I don't care for that look. I would want the ceiling portion done in tongue and groove like the walls. Heating and cooling costs also increase greatly with a lofted home, and they certainly aren't getting any cheaper!. The ceiling is so vaulted that it becomes wasted volume that is climate controlled. I think what I will end up with is a sewing room that is decent sized, but not quite as large as I would like. If I situate it properly, such as french doors that open into the great room, I can just wheel my cutting table into there to cut if I need more space. It doesn't bother my husband or I if I do that, and it can get wheeled back into the sewing room if company is expected. We really don't entertain much anyway, and if someone stops over unexpected to say hi, it doesn't bother me if they see my stuff out. I've been waiting to post a floor plan until we narrow the orientation of the rooms down to one we think will work. Then I truly want all of you to give me your thoughts on how best to refine it. I'll most liklely need help with the boxes that are storage areas and closets. Maybe with some prayer I will get to that point early this week. Moccasinlanding, I LOVE your storage ideas with stairs and such. They are excellent. I do like lofts....a lot. However, when I wrote down the pros and cons, the cons seem to be greater in number. Lofts can make less than "nice" things happen to the house, such as the high vaults. It certainly makes the house much harder to maintain, especially the outside structure being so far up in the air. (Think huge ladders). However, when it comes down to it, my main worry is running out of money mid construction. I refuse to get a mortgage or loan again. It's too nice living debt free now. My husband keeps saying how he can build me a sewing studio near the house (now to match it), for a reasonable amount of money. I've noticed that all the men I've spoken with LOVE detatched work areas. It must be a guy thing. They just don't understand my reluctance about it. The other evening we had a very violent thunderstorm. Bad lightning and rain, and we lost power for three hours. I pointed out that I couldn't see myself in a detatched studio in that kind of weather. In reality though, I wouldn't have stayed out in this imagined studio anyway. I love him dearly, but I swear the male species is from another planet. They probably think the same thing about women:) Maybe we women just feel more secure doing things within our homes, while men are genetically programmed to leave the house in order to hunt dinner for us. Sandy

Dawn, your box of monarda will be heading your way this morning. I'll post a tracking number when I get home. PS: Re: your note, I sent you a full medium flat rate box. I had so much that I threw away half of what I pictured in a post above. Erica, I don't know if you got it but the Geum Mai tai was kind of a joke because it's a known adult beverage that makes people happy! Happy, happy happy Lisa