Ha ha! Whit, I've been super stressed the last few weeks getting everything accomplished before we left for Cali last Saturday. Then having trouble with WordPress while trying to write my article Monday finished me off. I was a total wreck, so doing your virtual yesterday was fun. I was so exhausted that I didn't get out of my jammies yesterday until it was time to get ready to get dinner. Normally I'm up and dressed within minutes. So as you might imagine, my brain was just not functioning well enough to get the DW as Dear Wife right away. If you'd like to take better, truer color, photo I'll be happy to do another virtual for you.

Hi, Johnny-- For your currently maroon room, I'd split it up in a few ways: Base, window and door trim to new white in updated palette (semigloss) Walls to your new grey in updated palette Keep overhead beams in current tone, but paint out the v-groove between beams in your new white (flat) Should add light to the space, highlight the roof architecture, and set off your updated flooring in there. One thing I noticed from your fireplace photo is that your wainscot paneling dies into one side of the fireplace and doesn't run that whole wall. That seems an odd place to end the run, so I'd consider having it run at least into the next corner or wrap that room, as well. Let us know how it all turns out - and keep on!

Hi, If you can give the dimension of your room or floorplan I can show you color options in your room set up with mocked furniture. This will help you visualize your home in a better way, where you can also go and checkout color options in interactive 3D build like this yourself.

The dark ceiling in the recessed area has to go - it just creates a black hole effect in an already dark area. A quick lick of primer and then white ceiling paint will make a difference there. The living room side of the peninsula appears to be a soft grey and seems to work with the rest of the area and the counters. Would you consider carrying that colour into the rest of the kitchen on the cabinets? Or, if you could find a slightly warmer version (more greige than grey), it might work really well with the floors and fight less with the brick. It sounds like you're currently stuck with the brick. When you do a remodel definitely plan to remove that as it is really bossing everything else in the room into playing along with it. I'd paint it or whitewash it and make it the same colour as whatever paint colour you choose for the cupboards. It won't disappear, but it might fade into the background a bit which would help. When you remodel I'd also find a different location for the frig. A frig door that opens into a doorway is such a pain - we had it for years at another house and I just detested it. I know the counters aren't really working with the brick but I would never counsel getting rid of them because they really do look gorgeous and you clearly do like them. If you can, it would likely be a great idea to find a local design consultant to come out and work with you for a few hours. Some definitely do hourly work, rather than a large job. They can help you pull a cohesive plan together on colours that would work best with the elements you have.