I would love it if my house did not look like it was all decorated on the same day or even the same year. A home evolves over time and what one does in it and what one owns should reflect growth. I have mostly old antiques, anywhere from 200+ -70 years old. Our house was built in 1950 as a tract house with no character and none added over the years. There were no cool MCM touches or if there were, they were taken out for very bland cheap finishes throughout. We are going with a lot of clean lines and a 1930-1940s vibe. Kinda Deco, sorta modern, as if someone from then owned old stuff but was modernizing as they went along. I love each piece of old furniture and would never part with any of it, but am decorating in a different style that will work with it somehow. I'd hate to feel locked into a look or time period with no room for creativity. I'd also hate to be matchy matchy and have my chance at decorating begin and end with one look. Doing more than one room gives me a chance to use several pretty colors, different tile choices and unique schemes. Our palette will work well together as we recently put all our paint choices in a grouping on the table and nothing clashed or was out of place. Yet we will have many different shades working different vibes as you go through our house (currently white from p.o.'s, ugh). I just wish I had more rooms and esp more kitchens to decorate as I love putting it all together. If I had to make one choice of wall color, one cab color or one floor choice, that would take a lot of fun out. Our only uniform themes will be the use of chrome for hardware & fixtures and white for moldings. We will be putting a contemporary couch set in our new den, yet also have a more traditional living room and entirely different style couches and seating there. Our coffee and end tables will have nothing in common between the 2 rooms either. The den floor will be a tile with a pattern in it (a faux tile area rug) and the living room will have wood floors. It may sound hodge podge to someone else, but when it comes together, I just can visualize how comfortable and homey it will be. I'd be mortified if someone thought I copied a JC Penny's catalog or even the Restoration hardware catalog I drool over, lol. This is your chance to make your home personal and special. Have some fun and throw a little quirky in, but mostly enjoy the decorating because we are lucky to be able to do it and you may not get many more big re-dos once it is done!

Katherine, Share some pics of your existing cabs and BR finishes and your choices- we love voting! I spent months (cuz it took us over a year to do our Basement BR) picking hardware to match. I did get all shiny chrome and love how it all relates. But my existing upstairs cabinet hardware doesn't match the fixtures at all, and I never gave it a second's thought when we bought the house, and I would hazard a guess that no one has ever even noticed. Think of the cabinets as furniture- I bet you have rooms in your house where the furniture hardware does not all match!

I think they look great together. I like those Moen tp holders. I think that is one that the rod lifts up but doesn't disconnect so you can just slip on a roll? I'm hoping to get one, too, in Fina to match my faucets. I'm so tired of chasing that little spring loaded rod all over when changing the roll! When I was shopping for fixtures, I was told that different manufacturers call it either brushed or satin nickel. The finishes vary from company to company, but honestly unless they are right next to each other (and maybe not even then) would you notice a slight color variation. I mixed 3 company's finishes and you'd never know.

Many thanks to everybody who answered, you have all been very helpful in clarifying my very muddled thoughts. Here is a hopefully clearer description of the situation: The house is a 50's ranch style, with 3 bedrooms and a hall bath (4.5x8.5 ft) clustered on one side of the house, and the kitchen, office/den and another hall bath (4x9 ft) on the other side of the house, with a great room in the middle. We plan to stay in this house as long as we can, but we are in this city for my husband's work, and if something happens (although unlikely with his kind of job), we know we'll have to move somewhere else; therefore, we'd like to make updates to the house while keeping resale in mind. Our (excellent) realtor said that for resale we should have an ensuite. After reading the comments, I have to clarify with him if he thinks a lack of ensuite will narrow down the market significantly, or if we 'simply' would not get the best price for the house. Most houses in the area are old (in the whole city actually), and we saw plenty without ensuites. We saw two of the neighbors' houses, and they did not have ensuites. This is what we considered: 1. Redo the bathrooms with the existing footprint (not that we have room to change anything inside), but we can go far into making them pretty, 2. Add a door from the master bedroom to the hall bath next to it, and close access from the hall. This I think would be a bad idea, not only because the people in the other two bedrooms will have to go across the house to the other bathroom, but also because the master bedroom will end up with windows on two walls, three closets on another, and two doors on the fourth side. Not restful. 3. Add another bathroom next to the master bedroom where the closets are, with one closet door transformed into a bathroom door. This bathroom would be 4.5x12 ft, although it could go to 5x12 if need be (but no more, because we'll hit a big window), which will have a shower but no bathtub. We talked to a professional who said it will fit fine with the caveat that the toilet will likely be the first thing you see in front of the door because of the current clearance requirements. 4. Build an addition. This again I think would be a very bad idea, since it would be blindingly expensive and the house is already on the higher side of square footage for the surrounding area. We will of course fix everything that is broken. The interior doors are the original 50s doors, hollow core dark wood look with lots of scuffs and holes, and they were cut short to fit the now non-existent carpet, so I would qualify changing them as fixing what is broken (and they bug me every time I look at them... ). The windows are a perk; we are still divided on those. I tend toward option 1, while my husband is going for option 3, although he agrees we do not need another bathroom. The reason I feel ill equipped to make this decision is that I'm originally from Europe, and even after so many years here I feel mildly perplexed about the North American love affair with bathrooms. Our previous rental was built in the last ten years and had a huge ensuite which I didn't like. I found it hard to keep as clean as I thought it should be, and it was so large I felt as if I was doing my business in public. Given the bathroom pictures on Houzz, I'm clearly in a minority. Your comments help ensure that I don't miss anything that might otherwise be obvious, so thanks again. And extra thanks to whoever makes it to the end of this post...