My daughter's rental house has vinyl floors that look a lot like the picture Tami posted. Looks good, feels good, much more practical. Your kids are little now, but hard on the floor just progresses as they get older. Eventually you'll have basketballs bouncing on the floors, sport shoes of various sorts that should be left at the door but aren't, and general chasing and running around. One of the girls will inevitably spill nail polish or nail polish remover on the floor (well, maybe one of the boys, you never know). If you have real wood at this point you're going to spend more time reprimanding them than is necessary. You'll worry about it and be mad at them. Family life will go a tad smoother if you don't set them up for transgressions. My conclusion: you'll be happier if you go for the vinyl at this point in your family life.

Hmmm, that looks like a good spot for a chimney cupboard, then. I'm not sure what to think about the extra bar seating in the family room. I don't know if it would get used or not. I'm willing to do that if we'd really use it. I just went through (too many) images looking for pass through window inspiration. I'm finding very little that looks like what I'm thinking of doing. Does that make me ultra-original...or whacko? LOL So, my thought was to put open shelves in the pass-through windows and use them for storing some of my prettier functional items. Good looking bowls, canisters, etc. Or, to do glass cabinet doors, something like the article in the scullery thread a bit ago. I linked the kitchen from Fine Home Building with the pass through cupboards below. Here's one image that sort of comes close. I don't have modernist leanings (that I know of), so this is a bit off, but it's close. Here is a link that might be useful: Maybe cupboards like this in the passthroughs, with glass doors on both sides?

I have a fireplace and carpeting a lot like yours and I painted the room SW Latte and I like it very much. I have a beige couch and burgundy leather chairs and olive green accents. They all blend well together. If your room doesn't get a lot of light, then the next lighter color might work - Nomadic Desert. Other possibilities I envision would be a gold beige like SW Blonde. It would also blend with the rug and look nice with the brick, I think. Or a neutral green like SW Grassland or Svelte Sage. If you want a gold with more punch, try SW Golden Fleece or a green with more punch, SW Wheat Grass or Rye Grass. Just depends on whether you like walls to be neutral background shades or whether you want them to make a statement.

Hi everyone. I thank everyone for their comments. I got one thing that everyone seemed to agree on...stay Out of this marriage. O.K. let me clarify some things for some of the posters. I did dearly love my ex DIL. I loved her, but not her mother. She was very cruel to my ex DIL with her ugly words to her and my son. Nothing was good enough for her. I think my son felt like he ever measured up to her expectations. Also my son was so tired of raising the kids by himself. I saw that. But, I did not meddle...I thought he must be happy or he would say something. My ex DIL thought more of her career than she did her family. I don't know but something happen between them...for the last five years she has made her career her everything. I was secretly afraid that if she did not ease up something was going to happen. She is very educated and when she wasn't working she made college a second career. She was always taking a new course that was offered. Yes, I miss her, but I love my son more. NO, I hate how he had an affair. I do not believe anything GOOD comes out of adultery and lies. Spouses get hurt, children get hurt. Families are torn apart. I ABHORED the whole thing. BUT, I truly like the second wife better in some ways. She and I have alot more in common than the first wife...She like to sew, I like to sew, She quilts, I quilt..she is an artist, so am I, I play the piano...she played the piano at her Uncle's church before my son and she got involved. She stepped down after she and my son got together. I mean there are so many things we can talk about and do together..but they live 3 hrs. from us so it does create a problem, but when they get to come up or us see them we do crafts together...etc..etc. So I do like her in that way, but yes I am just watching and observing her. I analyze EVERYTHING...I try not to do it but I do. It isn't something I can turn off. I am a cautious type person and weigh everything before I will take a plunge. I weigh good and the bad, consequences of my actions..everything. Mostly I keep my opinions to my self, but yesterday she unloaded on me about how miserable her life was going and how she equated how things were going wrong and I even think she was maybe saying she felt it was because she had married my son... I was stumped for words and all I could say was I am soo very sorry! I also felt there was some guilt or sorrow and I may be wrong..I just don't know. I want my son happy. My son, in my opinion thinks with his heart and not his head at times. If she were to leave him I am afraid of what it would do to him. There is no way that my ex DIL would take my son back...and I am not wishing that, or maybe I am...but that is impossible and I know it. It's really is so sad what your children do to their lives and others lives. I am speaking of my grands...Everyone has told me what a good father and husband he was to his first wife. He worked at a large electonics company in a large city near where he lives(that is where he met his now new wife). She works in the operations part of this company. When they had large electronis show last year in another city, my son and her were on that project together. Getting back to the subject, (I swear I get on a rabbit trail and forget my train of thought, sorry!) He went to the kids games, cheerleading, waited for my oldest grand while she took her piano lesson, plus took them to church every Sunday. His ex did not go. He was the cook in the house...Every Sat. he and the kids would clean house and his big treat for the kids was to go out to eat and do some kind of fun thing Sat nte. Her thing was to go to her mothers house or to her sisters house and they go shopping and for drinks. He told me that he felt she did not love him..and he gave up. He told me he had planned on leaving her when he met his now new wife. I love my son, but it is within me to call it like I see it if asked...when he started this affair he actually called told me..I did tell him that nothing good could come out of deceitfulness. I was angry that he and his first wife did not go to counseling. He told me that she would not go...I suggested that he go alone, but he told me he was through. I wonder if this new wife had left him alone would he have gone. I am NOT blaming her, it takes two to tango. But she did know he was married..yes, and he did too. These are some thoughts and incidents that I can recall. I will stay out of it, but I have it no way tried to insinuate or say ANYTHING against her! In fact, she wanted to start calling me mom and that was fine with me. I have really prayed and ask God if he could change my heart (in the beginning) so my son and this new woman could see love and kindness and acceptance in me. Oh yes, also the ex wife calls me from time to time to check on me. I have told her that my son and his new wife were off subject. She still calls me mama..when she calls me. She mostly talks about her job, and she just started a new relationship with a man she was introduced to by one of her colleagues. I try to encourage her...I told my son his ex wife calls me, and vowed to him I would never tail tote or tell anything that was going on in his life. He said he understood and it was o.k. Maybe this will answer some of the question some of you were having...I think I am torn between all three of them...I can see the good in them all, but I can also see their mistakes, but I have my hands tied behind my back...it isn't my life. I just pray that this new wife stays with him. I think it would literally kill him if she left. He just seemed he rushed into things a little too fast. Of course, not everyone is like me...I dated my husband for 12 years before I would marry him, and he gave me an ultimatium before I would marry him. I don't make snap decisions...I am a slow mover...I wish my son had been.