OK- I will work on all of this. Honestly I had my mom (who has a good eye) over today and we went through some options and I got more paint swatches. First of all now that I looked at more real yellows I can see where you are getting beige from the swatches I posted earlier today. At first I was thinking- beige? They seem clearly yellow to me. BUT now that I have 7-8 strips of yellow the others DO look beige. And it's interesting how you pick a color you think is good but then when you put another next to it it TOTALLY changes it to a different color! Talking through it with Mom, I think it will be a good idea to go in one direction or another. I was trying to kind of have a little of everything and realized it will all be muddled if I don't have a clear direction going here! In my very first post I love the dark brown cab with the original glazed cab. But, looking at the yellows, the brown wasn't working as well. Not horrible but not ideal. I think I'm going to go for it and do the yellow (like the new inspiration pic) and put a lot of white with it - still with walnut island maybe- and some black accents. I have a black cabinet sample that actually was much more exciting than the espresso with the yellows. : ) I'm so excited. I really love this and think it may work out! Wait til I show the decorator. It's quite different from my original plan. I think she'll like it too. My mom said she was surprised it was less formal than I usually like but I love it and think it will serve my house well. I think still keeping the arch window from my original inspiration picture (not on this thread) and my lights we can work it out I must take one of the lights out of the boxes b/c I want to see what the real color is. Hopefully they are not totally out of place with this new idea. If so, tell me and I'll see if I can return them. I REALLY love them and they were pricey so I hope it can work. Don't want to force it though : ) OK, thanks so much for your help! I love when I get responses as I'm a bit OCD about all of this (as I think most of us here are!)

I just looked again at the trap door space, and gave it some more thought. Here's my take: Stain treads a dark shade Match floor color to stain Paint risers white Paint trap door AND bottom stair same as floor Beware! You may need a small colorful rug under the last stair/on floor(hard to see stair at night) For the rails,etc. The most common/best,imo, look is white paint on the rails and stain on post and newel. Oh! New thought re. last stair: Stain it in a light honey and stencil a design in floor color.It will stand out( for safety) and neat effect! Hmmm, you could instead, treat that trap door with that special effect. It's going to be charming, whatever you do.

Bossy, I rent my house out. When tenants are here, my electrical bill absolutely skyrockets. It goes from @ $24 in, say, june, to $195 (and now more since I've installed central AC) in July and August, and it is mostly the dryer. I hang my laundry to dry in the summer and NEVER use the dryer, whereas I swear tenants start doing laundry the day they arrive and never stop. I've come to believe, in fact, that they dry one item at a time. It's a huge issue for we homeowners who rent our houses out, esp. since electricity is SO expensive on Cape Cod (second highest in the country, next to Hawaii). I can assure you, conservation is NOT on the minds of most, from my experience. And btw - sorry to stray a bit here - but why does every piece of electronics and appliances now have a light ON when the dang thing is OFF? Nice to have your electric bill churning when nothing is even ON. This post was edited by Tibbrix on Wed, Nov 26, 14 at 11:35

I'm not a big fan of red, but if you love that color, go for it. I don't know where you live, but Sherwin Williams will help you pick out colors if you buy (I believe) a $75 gift card. They will send a color specialist to your house. What I did was pay for an interior designer to come in and advise. She was $125 an hour, and I just needed an hour with her. She did great picking out colors and giving me advice on the rest of the house, so maybe look into that.