Okay I'm back with more replies. Anyone who is bored of me can just ignore :) OSH, I admit that the color doesn't sound much better than your initial reaction to it, but i'll check it out. Camel isn't really that appealing to me though especially considering I already have it in my dining room. mayvenne, yeah, everything looks great with black and white. Argh. I don't think I realized just how versatile it is. I mean i KNEW it was fairly neutral and had possibilities but seeing all those colors and how well everything works is just more confusing. oceanna, I use plain old autocad to draw my plans and elevations. It's not really meant to be a "rendering" tool so much but I try to make my elevations somewhat detailed so I can see whether what I am thinking about will work or not. Thanks, I hope it looks as good in person when all is said and done (another 3 times downstairs to the bathroom last night and I just want my dang toilet back). lindybarts, they they look really nice but I think too dark for what I'm going for. They'd look gorgeous in pictures and in a magazine spread but i don't think it's a space I'd love to be in every day. squirrel, that narrows it down! :) amanda, thanks for the congrats. Will be back with nursery questions once I have a working toilet. Although DH liked coral I think he would draw the line at pink. :) kmcg85, thanks for the warning. It looks fantastic in the stores under all of those display lights. :) moonshadow, I will check out that color. I emailed rejuvenation to find out the color and they said they didn't know but recommended I print out the picture on my printer and have it colormatched. Um are they crazy??? onourway2nc, yes, you see my dilemma. Thanks! roguevalley, I don't think so. It's just a big room off a central hall. It's not like it's the "master bath" or anything. acomom, thanks for the recommendation. I just emailed them yesterday and requested they send me all colors they have added since 2005 when I first got my sample pack from them. They emailed me back within hours to say they'd be sending it out, yay. Aqua is one of those new colors. It will be interesting to see what else she has new. Also I should check out the old too - I was reading through her descriptions and she recommends terracotta for bathrooms. I had forgotten I had those but something a little more complex might be just right for the space.

Yes, dhygarden! I should have mentioned ebony and Madagascar rosewood in the same breath as ivory. I returned home in September from a year in Zambia doing research, and the elephant situation is dire. Zambia is one of the few African countries whose elephant population is not going down, but South Africa, who has the largest elephant population, has terrible problems with ivory poachers, even though they have a very aggressive program to stop them. As long as there is a market for ivory, the poachers will not stop. I spent time in an area where we had elephants and they are magnificent creatures. To kill them just to take the ivory is so... well, I could go on, but that's not the question at hand here. I usually don't have a problem downloading pictures or reading photo-heavy blogs, but Joni's was an exception. She could re-size them and make it a lot easier for her readers. I do have to say, other than the first picture of her daughter's table, which I thought was pretty neat, I didn't care for any of the others. That second picture, of the Veranda bedroom, was perfectly hideous, in my opinion. Looked like it reeked of Chanel and cigarettes and belonged to a high class madam. LOL Of course, just my opinion, someone else may think it's awesome! :-) I'm not sure the reports of the death of gray aren't greatly exaggerated. ;-) Maria Killam says gray is still "the neutral of the decade," and we're only halfway through the decade. A lot of people here on the gw forums are doing new kitchens and bathrooms as we speak in gray. Maybe it's not as popular to paint all the walls in the entire house in gray, but I think using gray is still quite acceptable. In my kitchen remodel, I'm doing all the cupboards/cabs in gray, the IKEA bodbyn in their SEKTIONS line. The counter will be black (I think, still deciding), the sink will be white farmhouse, the appliances black and stainless, the table and chairs white (eat-in kitchen), the back splash stacked rock, mostly gray but other tones too, the area rug under the table maroon with gray and white, window trim in maroon and wooden horizontal blinds in white. The wallpaper by the table/chairs will be a textured very, very light gray, almost white, and the floors will be vinyl planks hardwood look, grayish whiteish whitewashed. I don't feel like that's too much gray. (But I'd love anyone's input into the whole color scheme!) I doubt any of my friends will say, "Oh that gray is so last year!" Actually, none of my friends would ever say anything remotely like that, lol. I agree with violet west in that it's bold and daring to do a "permanent" fixture like a bathroom floor in a very bright color (or colors), but as she says, you'd better have the time, patience, and money to re-do them when that color starts to look pretty dated. I have a bright yellow sofa that's really a queen sized futon. But I can buy new covers for it for less than $100 on Amazon. Not that I have $100 to just throw around all the time. I ordered it with the yellow in 2011 and it's still yellow. I'm probably going to order a new cover in gray linen and get maroon throw pillow covers. My living room will have the same floor as the kitchen, as the LR, K, and DR are all one big great room. My accent wall will be stacked rock, just like the kitchen back splash. The area rug is a bigger version of the kitchen rug, maroon with white and gray. Same wallpaper on the one wall. I don't know what to do, if anything, about my chocolate brown recliner and loveseat. But then Maria Killam said yellow is hot this year, especially yellow sofas, LOL. Figures I'd be changing OUT of the yellow sofa the minute it becomes trendy, haha! But even though it might be fun to do, say, the bright yellow IKEA cupboards or a floor in primary colors, those are things I won't be able to afford to change, plus I think it's wasteful to rip up perfectly good stuff just because you want to be trend-setting. I'm confident my gray and white color scheme with pops of maroon will stand the test of time...and if not, who cares? :-) As long as I love it, that's all that matters. :-) Lana, well said. Monica, you did it right. People used to buy houses and pay them off. Unfortunately for my kids' generation *(genX), the crazy housing bubble taught them that houses are virtual ATM machines, sell every couple of years and buy something bigger and better. Of course, that all came crashing down in 2008. Now these kids in their mid-30's are stuck upside down in houses where they owe far more than they're worth. What Monica and her husband did was to pay off the loan early (easy if you just pay a little more than the minimum every month!), take out prudent equity loans to add on, rather than buy something bigger, pay the loans off. Now they're set for the rest of their lives in a home that they love, and it's theirs free and clear. Homes are still the best investment around IF you do it that way. Kudos to Monica and her DH! Lynn, I too really enjoy looking at pictures of other homes, even when they're not my cup of tea. I like seeing people's creativity in many different styles. I still think the bottom line is if YOU think it's beautiful, then it's beautiful. If YOU'RE happy, then who cares what Maria or Joni or anyone else thinks? You're the one living there day in and day out, and if your home makes you smile, that's all that matters. :-)

I thought about that distinction..travel and experiences vs things..to me, it's also not either or, it's both. I traveled less that I wanted to, planned to, yet quite a lot; most of things I love were bought or found during trips, whether several hour trip, or travel to faraway places. So that things I love they remind me of travel, experiences, certain people in my life..and travelling somewhere allows me to experience, to see people I love, to meet new ones, and to see and appreciate many wonderful things as well. Not all of them I'll be able to snatch and take with me, but I'll remember them. and most likely I'll snatch something small too:) So to me, it's two sides of a coin..the coin being, well..a journey. And each journey will be unique of course; but the point is to have it..recognize it...try to have a blast when possible, since once upon a time that journey will come to an end, and hard to know what the next one will feel like. Probably very unlike anything we imagine. I'm not afraid of becoming old lady(yes, I'm vain and shallow nevertheless lol, and would like to still look like I'm 28..))..I'm more afraid of not having a chance to become one..:) That'd be a pity.. And I hope to live to see my grandchildren one day, to love and to hold, you know, and I'm pretty sure they won't find me or my place ridiculous:) Funny, quirky, strange, different from what it will be(what it will be then?)-maybe. Well it's all cool. We don't take our journeys alone; others continue it, and they'll take from ours so much, even if no things will be left, no actual place, and very little memories.

@lindsey - stenciling is definitely on the list: Maybe even some freehand painting. Though I suspect it would be easy to go overboard with either or both, as well. And that board is lovely! @lyfia - I'm actually not sure that bow window will even stay just yet - financial constraints will necessitate certain tweaks to the plan. Really, he only sketched in a bit of furniture to help me grasp scale and what WOULD fit in the spaces. Since in the first iteration, I REALLY didn't get how big the plan was, and we ended up having to downsize it quite a bit. I agree, I do like to be able to look out windows, too. The tile stove will slide back from where he has it drawn, and get its own little niche, probably with some casing. We don't really have living room furniture for this space, so we'll be able to plan out a better layout when we shop for that. It's good to keep in mind, though! @beckysharp - that's a thought. I'll have to ask. I've been politely asked not to actually get vintage fixtures, as they can't pass inspection (not UL approved). Though a modern fixture with a vintage shade is fine. I've been doing some scouring of Etsy, Ebay, and local shops for those, as well as cabinet and door knobs and hardware.