I wouldn't be bothered by what is officially "in" or "out." Different colors resonate with different people and in different spaces and times. I would go with what makes you feel good. Will red make you feel good spread over all the area involved in the dining room and walls up to the second floor? Red is a very stimulating color. What colors will be visible from the areas that you are contemplating here? My hunch is that if violet is dark, red probably will be, too, although I love the Venetian reds, coral reds, and warm tones in general. I have deep red curtains in my dining room and, despite how glorious I find that silk in the evenings with the crystal chandelier lit, I would not want to see the intense hue from all over the house. The dining room is only open to other views from rather small openings. This is personal, however. If you love being surrounded by red, go for it. Funcolors recommends an Ellen Kennon red on one of threads--if I find it I'll post it.

Maybe paint the hallway/stair area the a darker or lighter shade of the dining room. I was going to ask you what color your furniture was for the greatroom and dining room? I dont know what the mocha color looks like exactly but I wanted to mention that if you put that in the kitchen does it look good with the cherry cabs? I was thinking that if you like the blue color idea I think SW rainwashed or SW quitude would look great for the kitchen with the floor and countertop and cab.(that is if my monitor is seeing that correctly) Again I dont know what colors are in your greatroom furniture. And then you could use the mocha color for your dining room/ foyer. A few other color suggestions that probably would go well with mocha (brown) I have for your dining room are SW grassland or SW svelte sage or maybe a red color like SW fireweed or SW flowerpot . Again I don't know what your style/tatstes are. I kinda color coded your pix to show an idea of where to put the paint.. (for some reason I couldnt get colors to show up) Im new at that kinda thing) .

natal, can you post a photo or link of your foot-operated trash/recycle cabs, muspic, can I see your cork floor? We're doing cork as well. The telling sign for me was when I went into a "wood flooring" showroom. When I asked where their cork display was (the whole floor was covered in the different wood flooring), I expected them to say they didn't have one (like most stores). Instead, they took me to the area where the employees stood all day. All cork. No wood. Enough said. Alabamamommy, our current house has white Corian counters. They were here when we bought the house and were afraid of them at first, but now we love them. I cook every day and never had any problem getting anything off them, including red white and tumeric. I spilled about 4 t. of tumeric on the counter when I was making keema yesterday. I got most of it right away. After I was done cooking, I saw that I missed a spot. I sprayed the spot with 409, let it sit a few minutes while I cleaned up then came back and it came right off. We've also had success with set stains using Soft Scrub, and even a baking soda paste. For the kitchen in the house we're building, my must haves were: * cork floors (I need the sound proofing for living with a brain injury and active boy!) * walk in pantry (that it is 9'x9'11" is a bonus) * all base drawers * wide aisles * pulls instead of knobs * dropped baking center so I don't have to stand on my tippy toes while kneading bread, and open on two sides so my son can help. * foot pulls for trash * hands free water faucet * island (I ended up with two. WIth my TBI, I can't go out to socialize much, so two islands give me a "little kitchen" where I can focus and not be distracted (aka, burn the house down). The second island allows others to be "in the kitchen" to help prep, socialize, clean up, etc. without being in my space. I can't wait! *desk area for printing recipes, menu planning, etc. * side by side frig. It just works best for the way we live. Funny story, when we bought our current frig, the deciding factor was the one that fix a pizza box. In the last four years, there have been less than 5 pizza boxes in there! We cut out most processed foods. So we love the side-by-side because when I cook dinner, I always make larger portions so we can get 2-4 leftovers out of it. There are packaged in lunch size containers in frozen. Everything is easy to see in the morning, when DH grabs his lunch. * Full size freezer in pantry. We currently have a chest freezer, but we'd like to be able to buy a part of a cow from a local farm, so we're getting a side by side freezer to store our meat and extra bulk goods. DH's must have, beyond what's above: * deep single sink for washing pans (Usually I clean up as I go, but often I run out of steam by the time dinner is done, so he'll do clean up. I figured if I give him the sink he wants, he'll do it even more!) * energy star appliances * water sense sinks * Sharp microwave...

The grey you picked is too dark. Way too dark in my opinion. For a whole wall, that is. Maybe you can use it for a specific part as an accent colour if you love it That Much? Once I bought a house with dreadful wallpaper in the dining room area. We didn't have the money right away to change all that, so had to live with it. After a year we started to like it. After two years we loved it. Amazing how some things grow on you. It was way too bold for us and way too colourful at first. We grew in both aspects. In my opinion the greys you have would go nicely with the yellow and pumpkin you have. Maybe the same thing will happen to you after you've lived there for a while? Or otherwise you know for sure what it must become. The trouble here is that very dark floor. I love the picture Judy posted, but have you seen that that floor has a much warmer, more orange tone? That changes the whole feel.