Our house is sadly lacking any kind of closet near the front door, which is the door everyone uses. There isn't really room for a hall tree (at least with coats on it) either, so my kids just keep their coats in their bedroom closets. By "closets", I really mean thrown across their bed or chair. But it's no problem for them to go get them when it's time to leave, and I appreciate not having to look at them the rest of the time. So maybe you could solve the coat issue that way and only have to find a storage solution for the shoes?

Someone on another forum said 'design for the life you have, not the life you wish you had'. I have wood floors, I love wood floors; I do not have a pool and will never have a pool. The whole landing idea seems pointless to me. If you could 'train' the kids to stand on the landing and dry off, why not dry off outside? If you suspect they'll rush into the house and hit the fridge without thinking (like I would have done at that age) accept reality and go with porcelain. My mother has porcelain floors that visitors always say, "I love your travertine". Some of the porcelains are very good replicas. I have personally not seen any good wood-look tile. It might exist, the stuff I've seen is not good. You might price out the cost of having poly applied every few years because, in my old region, that was $3.00 a sq. ft. I don't like to be a slave to my house and possessions, and I don't want to be grouchy with my family for not being more careful. So I tend to opt for easier maintenance. For me, wood is ideal, I'm not sure it is for you.

I think in your kitchen you need more contrast and color. Easiest way is to change your hardware to black (or color it black). You have warm colors in your kitchen and cool colors in you living room. You can use the warm colors like red or you can use cool color like blue or purple. It depends which color you like the most. For example you can use blue for shades in your kitchen and some kitchen decoration (as long as you have the same color in you in your living room) then add something orange, red, or Gold (warm-similar to your cabinet's color) as an accent to your living room. So you need more warm color in your living room and more cool colors or contrast colors in your kitchen. I hope it helps.

Arapaho, thank you for that site. I've been using similar information but from encycolorpedia.com which gives you closest colors in different brands with an error coefficient to show you how far off they are as well as shades, coordinating colors and more. aktillery, the fan is the same in the photo above so the colors, left to right are Cream No 44, ringwold ground, and matchstick. I agree with you. At this point I'm leaning heavily toward cream No 44. But the sun is out today, so I'll be able to see the paint swatches in a much better light.