Just a thought. Do you have to have some of the caramel in the counter? Once you choose a counter with caramel, your counter becomes less neutral and perhaps less timeless. I know you have caramel tones in your wood, but wood is supposed to be neutral so your are not required to repeat.it. Not saying the caramel is not nice and would not look great, but I just want to be sure you see that you could go with a counter with more neutral colours in it if that was what you find. The bianco drift I posted does not have carmel in it, but aside from that is similar to your inspiration photo you posted above. Carol

I can see the appeal, terriks, but I think the Platinum, while a lovely color, is too blue for your scheme. Rather than the color picking up the tones in the tile, I think it's putting the colors into the tile - both your shades are reflected in it in your photo - and I think a slightly warmer companion to the red would give you a more natural effect. Revere Pewter would be worth a look, and if it's still too taupe for you (it's paler and less brown than Rockport), take a look at Balboa Mist (also B. Moore), which is clearly gray, but warmer than Platinum. I think with the reflected colors in the tile, the warmer gray will be much prettier and more like mother-of-pearl, which is what I see in your tile.

i also objected to the white and red pillows, layering prints will bring more to the room. with the dark choices you should go for 'rich' not 'pops of color'. my husband and i and our two middle school aged children bought a whole houseful of furniture in 2 hours, at Jordan's furniture in the boston area. it was for a newly purchased empty vacation house, and Jordans at the time had a $99 delivery fee, no matter how much or little you bought... we made out very well on that, it was pretty much a full truck load. that was 18 years ago, and some of our choices we've "outgrown" and replaced but by and large it served us well. it can be done, indeed.

please don't use Minwax,,it's bottom of the barrel stain for flooring. as for stain color, what else is in the room? is it red oak or white oak? red oak already leans on the red side, so picking a red based stain will just bring out more red. if you want more neutral, choose a green base or ash base brown. I like walnut, antique walnut, early american. it's medium neutral brown. DuraSeal and Bona are up there at the top. look at those if you must use Minwax, here are some combos