I just realized.... you must think the pictures with the boxwoods are of MY garden! I WISH! I put those in there to explain the look that I am drawn to... boxwoods surrounding a flowering shrub. I'm on the west side.... maybe SOME day my gardens will resemble those if I'm lucky (and win the lottery! lol) I wasn't planning on moving the hydrangeas till Spring, but after all of the comments---I think I just may leave them be for a year or two and see how they do! Thanks for all of your input----and my husband also appreciates it! lol----Just when he thought I was done with the patio, I turn it into another project (the fence) and have yet another blank slate to start with (which to him means dollar signs.) :)

Before you pay $35 plus a gal and get it home and you not like it..why not see if BM sells the jar of sample paint in your chosen color? $4 for a sample if it is available could save you not only money but a lot of frustration and stress. We have learned to do that first. Putting the small cardboard sample chart on the wall doesn't do it for me so my very clever former Duron paint mgr. suggest we buy white poster board and buy sample or qt. size and paint that poster board the chosen color and use the paint tape to hang it on your wall where you can look at it for a few days before definately deciding if it is the right color you want to live with for a few years. That blue paint tape will not damage your wall or leave the residue that scotch tape will do. I came upon a website by accident on yesterday and although it was not on BM website, it showed a list of the most used BM paint colors and what rooms they were used in. I bookmarked it for future reference. There are other paint companies that are selling the sample paints, which is a super idea in my opinion. Less costly trial and error method!

Synlight, you're going to love your new home. Even basic builder homes have some pretty nice stuff these days. I actually like the bottom row of counter samples significantly better than the top, and they definitely seem more sophisticated to me. As for dark-light, it's wide open to the rest of the living areas. I'd try not to vary too much from the light-dark balance in the rest of the area so it all comes together nicely as a whole, no big dark block weighing down a corner of a mostly light room, say. My first thought on how to make it as functional as possible is in the answer to where you will find yourself doing most of your preparation for cooking; for myself I always plan around that since it will become the center of my kitchen, everything else relating to that. You have lots of possibilities. Your stove is far from the sink and the nice expanses of counter over there but has good work space on each side. The island doesn't strike me as a probable place for main prep, but it is a possibility, also between sink and fridge, and less likely to left of the sink, although you certainly have a lot of space there. You probably will also do lunches and snacks and that might take place in a second area, perhaps on the island close to the fridge or counter by the fridge? BTW, did you mean you'd ask about switching the stove to the fridge area? I think that'd be good if you could as you could work close to the sink and not have to cross traffic with hot food and liquids. If you can't switch the stove and fridge, how about asking them NOT to fasten the island down and doing that yourselves later? Or maybe just being there and telling them just where you want it after experimenting? There's probably not much room for shifting it, but even inches might make a happy difference as you move from sink to stove areas. I.e., whether you use it a whole lot or not, you'd like it to obstruct that path as little as possible.

IDed on this thread.