Hi, all! I have been a long time lurker here on Houzz, but this is my first discussion post. :) Everyone seems to have such great ideas for others, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Please bear with me as I am new to this design and some of my terminology may be WAY off.

Background: My husband and I have spent the first year and a half of our marriage living in the house he grew up in, built by his parents. We have a ranch, and the house is very characteristic of that. Almost even lodge-y if you will. Its great, but so so far from my (and even OUR) personal style. I have had the hardest time even decorating because there are some semi-permanent features in house that strongly dictate the "style" - it is very theme-y. Our current home has stained concrete (Cola-colored, I believe), thick (like 4-inch wide) trim throughout, a faux rock fireplace, barn-door inspired cabinets... it kind of feels cave-like with all the divided rooms and dark colors, and the floor plan is not conducive to our future plans. We had originally hoped to build, but due to circumstances with the ranch and being unable to sell the house we're in based on location, we have decided turning this house into our "dream home" is a better option. We will be knocking out some walls, moving the kitchen, turning an existing office into our master bedroom with a closet/bathroom addition, etc.

This is all so preliminary, but I'm trying to gather my thoughts and have an idea of where we're headed design wise. My husband and I's styles do differ some, and I'm hoping to incorporate both. We're in Oklahoma, but I am admittedly obsessed with the Texas Hill Country! Luckily, the outer appearance of our house is quite Hill Country and just needs a few cosmetic changes. Inside, we will be making the kitchen, living and dining areas into one space, a great room. This is important to note in design choices because currently the rooms are choppy and there's no real continuity throughout (i.e. orange Mexican-inspired kitchen, tan, olive and red living room, turquoise furniture with "leather" walls in our master). I want all of the rooms to tie together better after the reno and feel cohesive. We have fallen in love with the light, airy feel of some our friends' houses, so I want to strive for that but we also want to keep some rustic elements since it is a ranch house. We do plan to install a lot more windows and the open floor plan should help (remember, current situation=cave LOL), but I want to be sure my color choices don't get too dark and "cozy." I'm calling my vision Hill Country Contemporary because I'm leaning towards cleaner, more modern lines, but I also want to keep the materials more in-line with that "hill country" feel. This is where I need help! I don't know how to make that happen... I know I want to do a wood-look tile throughout the entire house. I'm attaching photos of what I'm visualizing color-wise. I want a cleaner-lined cabinet style, maybe shaker? But I don't know what color. All of the photos I find use white, but my husband is against those! He wants stained wood... I don't want to go too light because I feel some contrast between floors and woodwork looks good, but also don't want to go too dark. I don't want the woodwork to be too gold-toned or too-red toned. Is there something that exists within those parameters? I'm attaching a photo of a kitchen... I like some of the elements. The cabinet style and pulls, though I'm not sure about the color. Don't like the colored island. Love the beams, we will be installing some faux beams in the great room area. Love the stone. The next dilemma is countertops and wall colors. What would look good? I want to keep things neutral because I don't want to be limited by something that's not easily changed in the future (currently in this predicament.) I also don't want things to be too boring. I think my biggest fear is that I find myself between grays and beiges... I read on here that you have to choose one or the other, but in my mind I had found beiges/browns with gray "undertones." Now I'm not sure that that's accurate and I'm worried about how all of my potential choices would look together.

Help! Thanks in advance if you read this far! I'm looking for any and all ideas, constructive criticism, inspo photos, etc.

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