Oakley: no Cottage interiors out here that I've ever seen. You will, however, see everything from Rustic, Country, Traditional, Arts & Crafts, Contemporary, Modern and the many variatios of stucco and adobe homes. They all usually contain many Southwestern elements, from our colors to the art and accent pieces, though. A very good friend of mine has a drop-dead gorgeous, custom Arts & Crafts style home that she's decorated with a blend of (very good, antique) Japanese, A&C and SW pieces and they all work together beautifully. Bronwynsmom: Thank you! As for that SW decorating fad that most of us out here absolutely hated, you've described it perfectly, "the phony pink-and-teal, Kokopelli themed, allegedly southwestern schlock motif-heavy fad" . And I would add to that howling coyotes and saguaro cacti (which are not even found in New Mexico and always irritate us to see on supposed NM things -LOL). We still occasionally see evidence of them, but mainly in the cheap tourist shops. Your truth-be-told about owning one of the old, beautiful Georgian Colonial, Greek and classic revival style homes in your area of the country made me smile. My DD's dream is to move to Virginia and live in a home just like that. They are gorgeous but I like and appreciate your practical take on them . . . and will definitely pass it along to DD. Lynn

Thanks everyone. Though it would have been simpler (much) to have chosen a "theme" and followed it throughout the house, I did not. I hope my home won't end up looking schizophrenic! My kitchen is quite "country," with Shaker-style pine cabinets in a medium stain. The powder room has a freestanding vanity with built-in countertop and sink and has more of a traditional, furniture-style design. The kids' bath has beveled doors (I still don't know what you call the detail on the cabinet) that are painted white. The guest room bath has a pedestal sink--no cabinets at all. The master has more of a "spa" like feel to it, so I went with a very elaborate, detailed, elegant "beveled" cabinet. They will be stained a deep mahogany brown. Oh, and the laundry room has cheapo Home Depot stock white cabinets. No matchey matchey in my house! I think my builder thought I was nuts, but each room sort of developed a personality as we moved along the design process. FYI our construction is a MAJOR remodel in which we tore the existing house down to the studs, added a second story, and expanded and reconfigured virtually all existing dowstairs rooms. The end result will basically be a custom home in a high-end community, so we definitely did not want a "track home" feel.

I don't think the entire house has to match. Here is what I have: All bathrooms have either matte or polished chrome. And within each bathroom, the light fixtures and faucets and hardware match (metal-wise). In our first floor, all the light fixtures are either ORB (kitchen/family room), black (living room), or copper (dining room). So they don't all match, but they work together. Door hardware is ORB throughout most of the downstairs. The bedrooms, which are all upstairs, have a variety of fixtures in different metals. I don't care that much about having the bedrooms consistent, but I like to have some sense of continuity in the more "public" rooms.

No rules, all personal choice. We have a similar-but-not situation in our kitchen right now---we actually did match our cabinets to the trim in the kitchen and throughout the house (the trim and ceilings in an old house with lots of built-ins were painted Acadia White by the old owner). So rather than try to find a different white, we just had the cabinets done in Acadia White too. But...our trim and doors are all in oil-based paint, and that's no longer available where we live, so the cabs and new trim are all in water-based, which doesn't yellow like oil-based does. In our kitchen, that meant our doors and windows were one shade and our cabinets and trim (which we replaced) were another shade. Though it's all officially the same color, the old paint is much creamier/yellower than the new paint, which is much whiter---probably similar to the effect you'd have. It did bug me in the beginning, but now I'm actually used to it and it looks normal. (We're eventually replacing the doors so didn't bother repainting them; the windows will stay mismatched since they're a PITA to repaint and current paint job is in good condition.) I think the key is consistency, though, as palimpsest said. As long as all the trim is the same color and all the cabinets are the same color, it's less critical that it be exactly the same color, I think---though personally I do prefer when it is.