well, a quick look at my state's licensing info says that a permanent place of business that's not a residence is required. I'm not seeing a lookup feature, but they also have a sense of humor: "The process for obtaining an automobile dealer's license in New Mexico may seem as complicated as the Manhattan Project. You may even be tempted to camp out in front of the National Laboratory in Los Alamos in the hope that some brainy scientist will give you the secrets to break down the complicated code that seems to surround the licensing process." 3 a year? try 3 a week. Should I go out of my way to get this neighbor in trouble? Don't live right next to them. This post was edited by Violet.West on Sun, Sep 14, 14 at 19:22

I thought give you a quick update on these cherry cabinets. First, after the initial stripping to get rid of the clear coat, I used another coat of Citristrip overnight to suck more of the stain out of the wood. Progress. Second, I just plain bleached them. Clorox. Coated them with bleach and let them dry. Repeat. 16 times. The wood is now a delightful grayish red, without being pink, believe it or not . When I buff the wood (320 grit) it comes out to be the most gorgeous, rich shade. I'm absolutely thrilled. On an extra broken door, I decided to play with color. Treating this door the same way (apples to apples) I finally took some paint thinner and put a tiny, fork-tine dip of raw umber in it. I couldn't really even see the color. However, when I put it on the cherry, it toned it to a beautiful, more brownish color. I'm going to experiment with a drop of Jacobean stain in paint thinner. It's all stripe-y right now from my experiments, but I'm finally visualizing what I can get. I have 4 apothecary or spice drawer cabinets. I'm creating a credenza-like arrangement and will be staining these to look good with my cherry. It's different to get it dark with wood that wants to be whitish yellow. I'll keep you posted. :) My dilemma is now that I love my antiqued oak AND my cherry! Good thing my taste is labeled "eclectic."

I was just googling around for rooms with little natural light, and I ended up looking at a lot of finished basement or basement apartment interiors and also high-end hotel rooms. The ones that were the most pleasant and inviting (where the lack of natural light was not a noticeable deficit) had kind of a lot going on. Not in an overwhelming way, but those rooms had curtains and wall treatments and knickknacks and area rugs and artwork -- millions of little decor pieces and several layers of decor interest in most areas of the room. In particular, there were a lot of different textures in most of the rooms. It makes sense now that I think about it -- basements and hotel rooms are very bland rooms -- usually no architectural interest of any kind, including lots of big windows and natural light and moldings and all that. Which means the room isn't really pretty on its own. To make it pleasant and charming anyway, you need to bring in a lot of things that are pretty by themselves. And you need enough of them that you don't really notice anymore that the room's bones are bad. So your home, being a house, is likely a lot better than the average basement, but it still suffers from the same lack of natural light. This leads me to the conclusion that, while I also generally prefer a clean, modern type of design in kitchens, I don't think it will suit your house. It will just be so quiet and minimal that your eye will have plenty of opportunity to notice how dark the room is. Like a plain person forgoing makeup and accessories and wearing a simple beige shift. That kind of simplicity works well for the great beauties of this world, but the rest of us look better wearing cute earrings and mascara. However, on the upside, with all the professionally-designed basement spaces I just looked at, it didn't seem to matter at all if the actual elements in the the design were dark. Usually, there was a mix of dark and light. The bigger thing seemed to be that ALL of those rooms had a lot of lighting EVERYWHERE. Pin lights all over the ceiling, lighting on top of cabinets/soffits that diffused on the ceiling, pendant lights, etc. So: 1) I'd mentally set aside a big part of your budget to add lots of lighting. Have under cabinet lights, above cabinet lights, cans, pendants, a chandelier, in-cabinet lights -- whatever. Go nuts. 2) I think you are on the right track with a walnut floor. Walnut has a really interesting grain. It is thoroughly beautiful in its own right and will layer beautifully with anything else you add. Natural materials in particular are great for adding interest without seeming overwhelming or busy. 3) I would not repeat the walnut on the cabinets because, again, I think the super-layered design approach works better in low-light rooms. Cabinets just another opportunity to add interest, and you should take it. Make them a different color or painted or whatever. Also, think about something other than slab. Your floor will be flat walnut. If the cabinets are also flat walnut, then then that is EXACTLY the same thing. Here is an example of a kitchen with a lot of interest (cool tile floor, two cabinet colors -- one that is interesting and bold, glass cabinets with unusual glass, open shelves, unusual cabinet pulls, feet) that still has clean lines and isn't crazy fussy/busy: That is the kind of thing that will hold its own and still look pretty and charming even in the dark months. Also, it would look great with walnut. :D

Million dollar question - how do you determine the color hue of the grey tile? This is where a lot of people go off the deep end with the undertones nonsense. As in those undertones are sneaky and you have to watch out because they are hard to see and only people with a "trained eye" can see them blah, blah, blah. Hue family and undertones are distinctly different. Detailing the difference is long so I'll skip it, but trust me they are not the same thing. There are two ways to determine hue family. The most accurate is to measure the color with a device like a spectrophotometer or a colorimeter like a Color Muse. The resulting spectral data defines the hue family for you. This is how color experts do it. I never go anywhere without a Color Muse or a NIX sensor. If you don't know how to measure color with a device and use the resulting data to determine hue family, then you have to eyeball it. And you do that by comparing colors. Compare the uncategorized color to a big chip of red, blue, green, yellow, etc. and the hue family should be obvious. Color responds to its context. Comparing one color to another is basic context. It is no different from human kids and parents. See a kid running around at the playground and he looks like any other kid. Put him in context with his family and suddenly you are able to recognize similar features and compare attributes, and it quickly becomes apparent that junior is a chip off the old block. Same thing happens with color. Through the process of comparison, you will see the hue family to which a color belongs. More info on this link with a cheat-sheet of hue parents to use for comparison from Ben Moore and SW.