Hello, We are just going through the issue of a chandelier over a tub. Different electricians had different opinions; not even the contractor knew the "right" answer. My advice is to call your inspector; they know which version of the code they are using and they are the best source for an answer. Long story short, I can have a chandelier that hangs no more than 15 inches from the ceiling. What this means for me is that I will go with a flush mount crystal "chandelier". It won't be the beautiful hanging chandelier over the freestanding bathtub that is so often seen in magazines that I truly wanted, but I will get the look and still be within code for our area. If I hadn't been able to install a chandelier over the tub I would have installed a damp rated can, and then make a capiz shell hanging to surround the light so it looked like a lit chandelier but actually wasn't. Corbett also carries capiz shell chandeliers but they tend to be a bit pricey. If $$ is no object give them a look... Good luck...and call the inspector so you know what will pass the bar in your area!

A "mock up" of the kitchen - the space closest to the front left is the dining area with a 6' dining table (4' from and perpendicular to island). I can post more pics if that would be helpful. Thanks!

You wanted my thoughts on your home well here they are...OMG, when can I move in with you? LOL What a beautiful home you have! Geesh, if I had to do anything and I don't think that you really need anything, I guess I would maybe tone down the kitchen by adding a lite touch of a wash to the walls. Boy, your home is beautiful. This would just give it more demention. I love the colours you have picked. They compliment each other so well. I have added a site that you could check out some ideas. I don't know if you know her or not but I refer to her books all the time. Go to www.debbietravis.com. Then go to Room or Technique. You can get a lot of ideas here. And she shows you how to apply them to your home. Hope this helps a bit. Please let us know what you have done and keep us up to date on the pictures. I love the kitchen windows. Looks like a ranch type judging by the fence I see out the window. Just BEAUTIFUL...where is this lovely home of yours? Just being nosey! LOL Good Luck...not that you will need it. :0) Penny Here is a link that might be useful: faux painting

Hi Nutmegxo. I see why you're attracted to those last pictures. The fresh colors & nice workmanship make those rooms seem very attractive. However, you say that your house is a center hall Colonial, and those wall treatments derive from Mission and Arts & Crafts style house of the early 1900s, where the whole idea was to create a completely different--a more modern--feel than the Colonial houses of the century before. Oh, sure, you can mix styles all up--people do it all the time--but while a mix of different furniture styles in a single house can work out just fine, a mix of architectural feaures cobbled together from different styles in different centuries isn't often a success, especially when, as in a center hall plan, each room is clearly visible from the other. Normal size doorways with doors that close allow you to sneak the odd painted room into a house full of stained wood, or add an Art Deco bathroom to a Tudor manse, but the typical broad doorways in Colonial Revival houses make using different architectural styles in adjacent rooms a dicier proposition. That's the thinking behind some of the posters' suggestion above. Let's take a closer look at that blue room you posted. Pretty colors, that's for sure. But there are a few things that show somebody missed the bus. One of the things that bothers me is that the door looks like a generic six-panel door out of the Big Box store. These days, six-panel doors are as ubiquitous as were hollow-core slab doors when I was growing up in the 196Os, and like those doors, these are often used where they don't belong. A six-panel door in a modern house or contemporary condo is every bit as out-of-place as a slab door in a Federal style house, and just because they're easy to find (and some people see them as 'nicer' than cheap hollow core doors) doesn't make them suitable. Even if we assume that whever combined a door style from 1760 with a wall treatment from 1900 knew exactly what they were doing--and I'm not at all sure that's the case--they still missed an opportunity to do it well. Look at the door's cross-member. Now look at the upper horizontal on the wall. How hard would it have been to raise that wall molding four inches so it would align with the lines of the door? Or, if instead of painting the door all white, they really wanted to feature the [mismatched] door, why didn't they space the wall's moldings to match the panels on the door? Doing that could have allowed the blue to flow unbroken across the door's lower panels, better integrating the door into the overall look of the room. But instead of going to the hassle of finding a more approriate period-style door--either a five-panel model with stacked horizontals, or a three-panel model with one square panel above two vertical panels--or, if this wall treatment is new, adjusting it to match the door's proportions, they just took the easy no-thought middle course, buying & hanging a generic door with little thought given to how to better relate it to the other features in the room. Those kind of details are the things that, thought about early enough in the process, can make a a huge difference in the final results, and they often cost no more than doing things the same way everybody else does them and coming up with the same predictable results. Good design isn't about money, it's about thinking. But these days, all it takes is a pretty coat of paint to make a lot of people think a room is well-designed. M.