This is Mr. kris_ma. She asked me to step in to answer some questions: eastbaymom: The vent hood is from Bosch. I think Kris got it on Overstock. The "micro-drawer" is a Microwave Drawer from Sharp that is in our Island. We really like having a microwave that isn't above the stove or taking counter space. The NeverMT is a kit that allows us to hook up the sink soap dispensers to large jugs of soap so that we don't have to refill them. And the hidden storage is an assignment that *I* got based on an idea that Kris picked up off this board (which is why she isn't allowed to frequent here any more :). The 3" trim board between the fridge and the over-fridge cabinet is installed on a piano hinge, so that it swings backwards to store large flat trays, placemats, etc. on top of the fridge without them being seen. sandbox5: Here's the story of the wired sound: Kris found some Cambridge Soundworks Ambience 80 speakers, which install in the ceiling. We ordered four of them (2 in the kitchen and 2 in the living room) and got permission from our contractor to run some speaker wire while the ceiling was torn off, and I ran wiring from where we wanted to speakers installed over to the location of our pantry, where we planned to install the sound equipment. We also had the electrician install an electrical outlet inside the cabinet. After the kitchen was finished, we cut holes in the ceiling to install and wire up the speakers. Inside the pantry, we ran the other end of the speaker wires into an electrical box with speaker terminals. For sound equipment, we got an Airport Express, which has a mode that allows it to stream music from iTunes. The hardest part was finding an amplifier that would fit inside the pantry and not generate too much heat. We ended up buying two small PylePCA3 amplitiers - one each for the kitchen and living room speakers. We put these in the pantry, along with the Airport Express and connected the audio out jack on the airport into the amplifiers (we had to use an RCA jack splitter to connect to both amps). We keep the amplifiers on, and can stream music from our laptops anywhere in the house. We also use a third party software program called Airfoil (for Macs only) that allows us to stream music from *any* application, not just iTunes. I hope that helps.

Hi pudgybaby, we are nothing if not opinionated :-) The rock is far too orange for me. Natural material or not, I don't think I would ever come to terms with that color by trying to camouflage it by painting the siding. I agree that trying to stain or mortar wash the stone is your best bet. That said, if you don't like orange, why have you chosen essentially the same color for the front door? I think stained, not painted, wood doors are perfect for your style house, but definitely in another stain color. I'd wait to choose those until you decide what to do with the major design element--- the stone. Double doors are, IMO, perfect for your house--- wide and welcoming. If your budget allows, could you replace the garage door with a real wood one stained to match the door (whatever color that turns out to be) ? You can't pretend the garage is not front and center, and I have never seen a garage "disappear" with paint.....if you paint it lighter it is a bright mass in front..... Darker and it becomes a black hole. There are some beautiful wood garage doors out there that,would tie in the front entrance and the garage stylistically, and give you another natural material that will go well with stone. I would definitely do something with the concrete porch, either stain it, use quarry tile, or flagstone tile. Brick pavers is too much. But again, until you make a decision about the rock color you cannot pick a material for the concrete. The massing of the planters and paths is a task best left to your landscape designer, who should be able to give you the feel of your inspiration picture without duplicating it exactly.

thank you all for your comments!! the blog post was a great read and i’m thankful because my house is very brown/beige so i’m hoping i won’t have to redo the whole interior (we moved in 5 years ago and did t do a thing). heres a close up of the wall. I can’t thank you guys enough!

You have a psuedo-dutch colonial. But it looks like the way it was constructed is as if there is a plumb vertical exterior wall which is what the roof bears on, and this upstairs vertical wall is in-line with the 1st floor wall (at least in back, probably in front but can't tell with the porch). Then the psuedo-look "slanted" roof was added on outside of this vertical bearing wall. If so, that would lend well to just removing this psuedo- shingled "slant" wall to expose the plumb vertical wall. However, it would be a lot of work and money, as you have to then sheathe the exposed wall, extend a soffit of some sort, and in front probably deal with a porch roof that may fall short of this wall. It would be out-of-pocket, not insurance money. You also have a nice E30.