Thanks for the opinions! Of course you all are picking the cheaper option, so I'm loving it! There are kids, of course...but I'm kind of banking on the layout preventing them from being directly in front of the fireplace while rough housing. mjsee - if the floor is tile, why do I need a hearth rug? I am honestly asking...I don't have much experience with fires/fireplaces, so I don't know what's required. One thought I did have was to get a pull-out tray below the grate to catch ash to try to keep the wall around it cleaner when we have to clean out the ash. jakabedy - you can see a little of the house in my clippings - it's a 50's ranch, not a MCM, but we tend to keep things pretty cleanlined. Thanks, guys! Deb

Getting ready to finalize cabinets and appliances. I am getting offered a great deal on Wolf carbon stainless 36 inch undercounter wall oven (with 36 inch wolf induction up top) and subzero carbon stainless fridge. I am thinking of pairing those with white cabinets (Ikea; lidingo series) and black granite countertop. I will be paneling the dishwasher (Miele) with white cabinetry. I think this may look super cool, but then again, maybe not? Can anyone picture this? If so, does it look good??? :)

If only I could! The adjoining walls in those corners aren't the same width, so diagonal is out. The Belgian jelly cupboard is 22" deep x 33" w. It would protrude into the foyer entrance since that wall is only 7" wide. The china cabinet is 54" wide, so it won't fit diagonally because of the narrow wall leading into the kitchen lounge. It won't fit in the corner, or against the wall, where the sideboard is because there's a heat vent in the floor and the china cabinet is too low for a heat vent deflector--that's why I needed a "leggy" sideboard. The walls in the corner between the two windows are less than 48" wide. And, there's a heat vent in that corner, too. This old house was custom built for a Duke professor and his wife in 1939. They saw the plan in a magazine. It was made for their furniture, I suppose! thanks

Hi, I installed slate wall tile stone panels over my fireplace and the project went smooth with one exception. Since the fireplace wall protrudes out and at an angle (Not 90 degrees), I had to stack the tile panels on top of one another as opposed to purchasing corner pieces for a 90 degree angle. Because they're stacked, the ends show up as grey while the remaining colors of the stone are rustic. So, it looks like one line of grey on each of the corners from bottom to top. Any ideas how to blend the grey end corners into the rustic colors? Can you recreate rustic slate somehow on the ends? Thanks in advance for any ideas.