The only decorating I've seen of yours is on RMS and it's your girls' bedroom and I absolutely love it. It is bold, brave, cheery, and very cute. How could anyone be depressed in there? When I view the second group of pictures it's like "ok, yeah, so what?" But when I view the first group with the red fridge it's like, "FUN!" Heaven knows kitchens are drudgery enough. Put some fun in there. If you ever remodel, or get bored, well, you know what they say... it's only paint. They will always sell white appliance paint. Take it outside, mask it off and spray away. Or sell it. The point is, it's not permanent. It's not fatal. Indulge yourself -- get that red fridge and all your friends will envy your moxy and will oooo and aaaah over it for years to come. Why have a house that looks like everyone else's? Where's the fun in that?

Hi, My opinion is that you can never have a window too big, but I'd be more concerned that you're designing a permanent architectural feature around furniture. Questions I'd ask myself if I was doing this would be: "Do the windows look balanced from the outside, do they look odd without the armoire, what am I going to see out of these windows, will my curtains be thick and dark enough so I could watch tv during the daytime, etc." If the view out the window is nice, find another place for the tv and put three windows there. :) Mitch

suzannesl: Thank you so much for your reply and kind words, Suzanne! I really appreciate it! You have it exactly right, 1-4 are the potential swatches that are taped up (minus the possible SW colors that I don't have swatches for) and A-D are the colors in adjoining rooms. I totally see your point about judging the colors from the little swatches and a computer monitor (I wish I could have you all visit our kitchen, lol!). Painting actual swatches on the wall would be best. I was hoping to narrow the choices down a bit - if possible (for example, if it turns out that Fernwood Green only looks good with a true white, or Guilford Green looks terrible against a pale yellow like Ambiance, that kind of thing). I suppose someone would really need the fan decks to make that judgement though. =/ Maybe I should just buy all 6 colors to test? (Hope DH isn't reading this, lol!) Here is the countertop story - We're doing our kitchen on a budget. I wanted soapstone (can't afford it now), so we got Ikea birch butcherblock countertops, stained them black with india ink (thanks to Brickmanhouse!), and finished them with satin PolyWhey. We don't expect them to last forever, but hope they can give us a few years until I can get the soapstone that I've been drooling over. (And, they can always be refinished if they get too beat up.) singingmicki: Thanks for your vote! I will also look into Ethereal Mood!

i'm hoping the "I like white cabinets but afraid it will be too dark" comment was a typo? You really need some under cabinet lighting. A nice larger pendant over that island or a few over the sink peninsula, would also help the lighting situation. Pull one of the creamy tones from the granite and use that color for the cabs. get some samples, bring them home, and try them on one of lower doors to see how they look.