My husband loves our house colour; I'm not even sure now what the colour is called. It is a sunny yellow, but we've had it for 11 years and I'm getting tired of it. I've picked out the colour BM Kendall Charcoal as the main colour and BM Dinner Party for my front shelves and my door(s - we are adding an addition next spring/summer) in the back. We are leaving the trim white. Thoughts on this new change?

Nearly three years later! Despite concerns about the dark floors we did them through the whole upper two stories (one floor had a small area of cherry, three kinds of tile, and very thin laminate floor, the other was worn carpet with dog urine stains). Changed lights, added an matching island found on Craigslist (2007 cabinets big box store cabinets are common, it took several months to find a proper match), and painted Kilim Beige. We also had some interior remodeling with moving doorways in the area behind the kitchen and living room to make the only bath on the first floor accessible to the hallway rather than via the bedroom. Window trim and baseboards were replaced, as was cabinet hardware. Just this week found the slipper chairs on Craigslist after spending two years moving furniture this room trying to make an off-center window/fireplace and narrow space work with a TV. This is the only living room space so it serves all members of our tiny family. My parents live in the walkout basement and eventually that space will be a media room/additional bedroom/office/wet bar/additional bathroom but for now, we live up here! We still intend to alter the mantle. And people asked about eating, we're two adults and an 8 year old , so we eat at the island. The console table behind the couch extends to seat 6, and we pull that out once or twice a year, putting it where the slipper chairs are. It's not perfect, but we have very little family. My husband loves to cook and often invites people over but we all end up eating around the island in winter and outdoors in summer. Eventually we'd like to replace the laminate counter (the island is granite) but the coordinate fine and I've stopped noticing it. The green has been a good accent in the room. There were several debacles, as always. The new stove is the second new stove--the first was ordered from overstock and was a cheap knock off of a viking, lesson learned when it fell off the truck and was crunched into a trapezoid but no one would replace it. Two months of that stove in my living room, arguments with overstock, and the manufacturer, and finally Visa resulted in the spending more on a local appliance store supplied Fisher &Paykel DCS. The xmas tree is coming down this week and the giant fern (it's been aruond for nearly a decade!!) will go where the tree is and the two slipper chairs will actually be able to see out the french door next to them. Everything in the room, except the console table and the round side table were garage/estate sale or craigslist finds (the Hancock & Moore leather set was the find of a lifetime, newish and only $400); the art is all personal and meaningful mementos of past homes and trips we've taken. It's far from perfect, but it's time to move on the exterior.

Remove the mirror. That entire wall needs a revamp. At least if the mirror is removed and possibly window treatments added like pic 2 below, it will soften the area. I'm no designer. I think you need a good ID to treat that wall as a whole element within the room rather than just removing the mirror. BTW, I'm not suggesting either of these styles, just the concept with the large arches surrounding the FP without a mirror above and the window treatments to soften those windows.

I prefer 1 (one) pull on the drawers, which is what I did in my kitchen. I went with 6" pulls on my 30" and 33" drawers and 8" pulls on my 36" drawers. My pulls have a design detail on the ends that adds 1.75" to the length. Can you get the new drawer fronts and tell the GC you don't want any pulls? You can then buy slightly longer pulls and install yourself later. If you don't ask for a credit or money back, your GC will probably agree. Use blue tape to make some pull tabs until you get the pulls installed!