Neil, you will get a lot more suggestions if you start your own thread. what I will tell you is no gray laminate. In fact, I wouldn't even do laminate. can't you do a nice engineered oak? like a french oak? These following two floors are exactly what I would choose. (along w/these beams. more on that later) all engineered options. that won't go out of style and will look great w/your stone. The last thing you want is more gray on floor where you'll be stuck with it for decades. With flooring, it should be something that will last. laminate isn't going to last 50 years. wood will. wood floor will never go out of style. plastic stuff will. But ifi you must to the LVP, pick a really, really good quality brand/style that looks like a nice french oak in a natural to medium stain color I would NOT do any type of gray flooring. Your fireplace is very cool and modern. bring in some warmer wood tones. This is Alaska Gray on this fireplace. Notice the warm wood floor, the wood accents, the white walls, and all of the textured items (the rug, and misc decor items) A potted tree in the corner would be perfect. I also have to mention your room and windows. that ledger stone leans toward a more contemporary vibe. The casing around your doors/windows and entryways, are all traditional. your stairway railing is traditional (90's) the windows, ditto. and that ceiling fan, please, exchange for a nice (and hang it lower) chandelier of some type. This color combo, flooring, furniture, would look equally amaing in your room. love the black accents on the sides of this fireplace. This wood floor is perfect color for yours. wood beams that you can't see make the whole room And if you did some faux wood beams on that cathdreal ceiling, it would look a million times better. In fact, since you like the modern farmhouse, check out this link. she has the same fireplace stone like you do and explains how she did the faux beams. (yours would look even better than this since you have the vaulted ceiling!) https://modernfarmhouseglam.com/blog/wood-beams-in-greatroom-at-modern-farmhouse-glam/ She actually used a wood look tile on her floor, but it's not half bad. can you imagine how cold this would look if she had used a gray flooring?? trust me. go w/a wood. and the wood beams. Use your imagination w/this one on the fireplace (imagine your stone). this is a darker floor to match the beams. Sectional is so much nicer than what you have. wood shelves, throws, the lighting,,,, some other decor ideas if you like the farmhouse. (notice all of these have the warmer wood floors, not GRAY!) copy any of these photos for ideas, flooring, beams, decor. Like I said, start your own thread and you'll get lots more help if you want to transform that room.

It really just depends if that $1600 is worth it to to spend on it. For me it likely would not be, but for you it may be. Whereas I might spend $1600 on something else others might not deem worth it. Changes always get more expensive the further into the build you get! At some point you need to just decide it is enough and stop spending :) As for the windows - eh, if you ever “regret” not having more windows you can pay someone to add some later. Sometimes posters here act like this is an irreversible “error” and your life will forever be more miserable for it. Yes, it will cost more to do later as they will need to punch a hole, add a header, flashing, maybe reroute electrical etc, but it is possible. Even easier with vinyl siding. People where I live often add windows for egress etc when renovating so it is certainly not an impossibility. Sometimes there is also a functional purpose - for the owners who live there - to not have windows in certain rooms or on certain walls that may just happen to be side walls. Not sure your plans for the house as a whole but I know for mine we have restrictions on windows on side of house (as a percentage of total windows and a max percentage for a window) due to lot sizes & setbacks (fire safety thing). Plus we are in a colder climate where there are additional energy costs as you add more windows. Seems others don’t have that or same restrictions and so assume everyone is in same boat as them. The rooms on side of my house that lose out on windows entirely are a mudroom/garage entry (where I am putting floor to ceiling storage on exterior wall - 9’), our main floor guest bath (needed this as an insulated mechanical and plumbing wall so could not use for window) and closets (where I don’t want windows due to fade). Our laundry room only gets one window instead of another on exterior wall because again I am doing floor to ceiling storage (8’) there. I also only have windows (3 3x5.5 windows) on one side of my master bedroom as I want one blank wall for headboard (with no doors or windows) and I am very unsettled by windows on my “headboard” side - especially as our neighbours would get a full view into our room from their child’s bedroom if we had them. I also like a darker bedroom as that is where I sleep! I had windows behind my bed once (high windows) and kept them covered with blackout blinds all the time. Our guest room has one exterior egress window and none on exterior side wall but has three interior windows, and our office also only has one exterior egress window but gets an interior clerestory and glass French doors so neither suffer for light. We opted not to put side windows in dining nook (which has one 6x6’ window at rear) or living room (which has has 6 3x6 windows in a 2-story area) as those are the only places in our open living/dining/kitchen room to hang art, nor do we like look of windows around a fireplace as would happen in living room. So we put in plenty of wall washers instead for lighting and to light up art. Our spaces altogether are not very big, so we don’t get that issue of having a room deep in centre without any light. Our basement also has an area with no windows for future development as the plan is for it to be a theatre/very dark man cave room. Houses still sell here even with few or no windows on side because it is what is expected here (and there is a privacy and fire code factor when you are 5-8” away from neighbour). We are taking advantage of our exterior “blank” sidewall/sideyard corners by planning to add a wrap around three or four season deck & solarium - that “blank wall corner” on side of our dining room is where we plan to add a walk in sauna and a private changing area for those using the sauna and enclosed hot tub. Not only are we not blocking a window, no window is a benefit for privacy. I don’t need to be looking at a guests naked body while I am eating breakfast or vice versa :) I also remember you had a walkout basement so I expect you may be able to plan a two level outdoor space/room for future. Don’t fret much about the comments. Your house looks cute. Hey, at least you don’t have the horror I have of a snout garage too ;)

The new tax laws made it a bit more complicated as the y lowered the total amount of principal on which mortgage interest can be paid to $750,000 which is relevant to HCOL areas. Also hit hard are HCOL stats such as California, NJ, NY since total of property and income tax deduction is capped at $10,000. Since the standard deduction for 2018 was raised to $12,000 for singles/$24,000 for married couples, a significant number of people would not have more than $12,000/$24,000 in deductions and therefore the issue of mortgage interest deduction is moot since they don't have enough other deductions

IMO stacked stone is beautiful. Use it for a fireplace surround or somewhere else that is more suited to that material. A smooth surface is needed for a shower. People are always posting threads on here complaining that their tile professional created lippages in their shower. If you use a stacked stone you are automatically going to have all these little nooks and crannies. That is going to be virtually impossible to keep clean. Why don’t you use the Stackstone somewhere else and pull a nice color out of it and put a nice smooth porcelain tile in the shower that has some of the colors from the Stackstone that’s in another room. That’ll help you tie together colors throughout your house without introducing an impossible to clean surface. My daughter is a professional composer, producer, and arranger. There’s a vocabulary word called idiomatic that composers learn on day one, mine learned it at age 9. It basically means to assign the work in music to instruments that can do it. So you wouldn’t assign a violinist to play bass notes that are only achievable on a cello. There’s no way the violinist can play those notes. So if you are a composer and you try to write those notes into the violin part, you’re not composing in an appropriate idiomatic fashion. This principle applies to putting building materials in places where they don’t belong. The inappropriate materials are not idiomatically aligned with the functions of the space. Since shower, toilets, bathtubs, and sinks, should be pretty much the most cleanable surfaces in your house, you should choose smooth surfaces for those. Stack stone is not idiomatically aligned with the function of the shower. Now, People do violate this basic principle all the time, for example carpet in bathrooms, yuck. So if you want to violate this basic principle, it’s your house, and you can do it. I’m sure you will find a contractor that would be willing to do it. Just like all those people found contractors that were willing to install carpet in their bathrooms.