mamabird, I can appreciate your (or is it DH's?) desire to have a white room to house that large stone fireplace. It sounds very good to me, in fact - a lovely Scandinavian-country look. I really like the idea of a nearly-white in that room - it won't look cold! not with that behemoth of a firebox in the room. LOL! If you like the White Dove for the woodwork, it looks good. For the walls, if you're amenable to other brands, I would suggest Farrow and Ball's "Strong White". I have this colour in my living and dining areas and it looks like cashmere on the walls - just regular undyed, cashmere. A definite white with a little bit grey, a bit green, a bit tan, but only enough to keep that white from being blinding. Strong White's my preference for your room. It will "go" with the white dove as well as with the tan of the stone. Another (set of) suggestions are from Donald Kaufman. I have DK-24 (in a bedroom) and I love it. It is basically a white with some green, blue and lilac / tan to it. I have it in north-facing room and it reads quite like a blue-green tinted white - once again just enough to knock the blindingness out of the white. This would be even more of a scandinavian-country touch to your room with the great big stone fireplace. Other nice whites from DK are DK-4,5 and 6 the last of which has a noticeable amount of green to it. So not a green colour per se, but a green-shaded White. Alternatively, if you're really bound for a deeper colour in the white-ish territory, I'd suggest F&B's Off-White or Shaded White. Both are gorgeous, definitely deeper colours but both also come across as whites-in-shade if you get what I mean ;-) And I think they'd go swimmingly well with that stone fireplace. Good luck. For what its worth, I support your paint-it-white vision as I think the look will look stellar in it with the fireplace.

I am glad if I could have been even a small help. After going through our fairly large scale reno, I would hesitate to ever go through something like that again unless it was really needed. It was a painful process and we got disappointed in many ways and still are. We love the new layout and new kitchen and what was done to our master bath and bedroom. We love having the laundry on the main level now. What makes it worthwhile (eventually) is our kitchen and master bathroom were beyond ugly and our kitchen was small too. We added on a main level den and a screened in porch. We can now be outside and not get eaten alive by mosquitoes in the eves.. The changes made had a real impact on how we use our house. We can maneuver around in master bedroom now without banging into the furniture and our closet space is doubled. I can now hang the shirts I wear to work and not need to spot iron them from being folded. I can find my shoes on the closet floor in a minute or less. No more having to dig to try to find a shoe's mate. The skylights added mean more ventilation and using the lights less often. We finally have a/c in our living spaces, but need it less than before because of the new larger windows and having more of them to open. The changes you are contemplating are more cosmetic in nature and less urgent functionally. Knowing what I know now, I'd be much happier to cook in a kitchen with granite I don't love than to start even a smaller version of what we went through. We need to re-do our family bath in the near future, but that was poorly installed in the past and has functional issues that are only getting worse. We need to recover financially and emotionally before even touching it. If I were in your shoes, I'd be putting aside money for your next house and gathering ideas for what kinds of looks you would like next. You don't know what the next house will have or need, but you can start a folder with inspiration pix and ideas. If you are very lucky, you find a house that needs little work, and the money saved will go to other things, but if not, then you won't have to worry about making needed changes. As much as I have been focusing on our interior, I know the landscaping and fence need re-doing and that will cost enough.... You may want to have a slush fund for those kinds of things in the next house.... In any case, I'd think long and hard before doing any optional work. Your kitchen would dazzle 99% of people. Too bad it is not your real cup of tea.... sigh... I do understand your situation, but think you may regret it if you jump in too hard....

I just had a look at AJ Madison to get some hard numbers about the difference between a 36" built-in and a 42" built-in. It's really not much of a difference at all. Most 36" built-ins have at least 20 cu. feet, and Marvel apparently makes a few 36" built-ins with 23-23.6 cu. feet capacity. Most of the 42" built-ins have 24-26 cu. feet. I think the difference here between what is easy (36") and what you want (42") is not big at all -- the same or less than the capacity of a mini fridge. I'd get the 36", and decide later if I missed the extra few cu. feet enough to get a mini fridge to tuck in another corner of the house. If you have room in the dining room, you could build a mini drink fridge into a buffet. And if it's any comfort, this guide says a family of four needs a combined 18-20 cu. ft. of fridge and freezer storage: http://insideadvantage.com/content.jsp?sectionId=44 This guide also pegged a family of four needing around 20 cu. ft: http://www.cnet.com/topics/refrigerators/buying-guide/ (It said you'd not want much less than 20, might want a little more.) And this says 18-22 cu. ft for a family of four: http://www.overstock.com/guides/refrigerator-fact-sheet So you should be absolutely fine with a 36" built-in fridge.

pllog: you think like I do. Whenever I find myself in a situation (large or small, "trim color regrets" would be small,), in order to ease anxiety, I always think "what is worst case scenario?" In this case, scraping paint or primer off the trim is "worst case"... but it gives me an "out" to know that nothing is permanent, and for some odd reason that makes me feel a LOT better! So I am putting scrapping primer on the back burner, but I appreciate knowing that it is POSSIBLE! thank you. cleo: that sounds very interesting, I would love to see it! (but don't blame you for cleaning out! I am almost ready to do the same." I will toy with that idea, maybe not black and white but black and gold, black and red? creek: I thought of that too.. I absolutely love red, it's my very favorite color! I am somewhat concerned that next to the green it may be too "christmas-sy", but I think I will try a sample. Then I could do black doors, that would look cool. Eandhl: My red island is Classic Burgundy from BM. It looks more burgundy on teh paint chip, it came out a country red. I am not sure it is the red I would want for trim, I aqree with creek that a more tomato red might look better. Good news is I have TONS of samples of red paint to try out. Thanks ladies, I knew I would get some help here.