Well you should have met my mother. Using elements that the decorating world has declared passe she could make a kitchen or any other room feel totally warm and contemporary. She was one in a million though.
I moved my fridge from the corner to a wall between DR and kitchen. The cabinets surrounding it make it look built in. In terms of wiring, the move was easy. ( wires go straight, whereas before, far longer and curved.) To me, it is a pleasure to open doors wide and be able to clean the drawers.
Lots of other desires I didnāt get, like wall ovens and a MW drawer. Counter space mattered more.
Exactly! One can use a box rail if you donāt like to see the hardware. Thatās what I am doing. It is almost a pocket door outside a pocket.
@Nrdsb4 I thought yellowing was in the wood itself. I know water based sealer does its job not yellowing on maple. I have maple floor in the bathroom sealed with water based and it is staying white.
In regards to barn doors I agree that I donāt care for the rustic ones so much. However there actually are some ābarnā doors - doors on a slider that are more clean and modern. I was looking at some for a odd 1/2 bath situation we have off our kitchen.
I will say though that barn doors = country or cottage type decorating (in general) and if you think about it, while we might not all still have duck shaped cookie jars (I had one in the 80ās!!) there are still many, many people decorating ācountryā style - just in a little different way. So I respect people staying with what they like - even if I donāt!
@abasket - I wanted a barn style door when we renovated our house and the contractor and folks here talked me out if it because smells and sounds travel more than with a traditional door. Just some food for thought.
Iām surprised so many people dislike gray. I resisted at first, but when H and I did some decor refreshing a few years ago we ended up with most of our rooms painted in shades of gray and we love it. The carpeting (family room and entire top floor) is a very light beige and the wood floors (all of the first floor except family room) are brown, so itās not overwhelming. Neither of us is good at decorating, so we paid a home stager to choose paint/carpet/wood colors for us. Worth every penny!
The sliding barn doors seem like an expensive feature that will go out of style and be a pain to change. I donāt dislike them ā but just Iām too practical to choose them. I wonder about farmhouse sinks along the same lines. Or maybe theyāre already āout,ā lol.
I like the greys and dark floors and have incorporated both in our house in the last 5 years. You can change out the accents easily and I just think itās a more modern and pleasing take than beige or off white neutrals.
We repainted most of our downstairs with this amazing neutral that is gray but also amazingly has just enough beige in it that it just works with anything. Itās basically a warm grey. A designer friend suggested it to me and calls it the ultimate neutral. I love it. Itās a Sherwin Williams color. Iāll try to find the name if anyone is interested.
Agree the gold and brass fixtures donāt do it for me.
I donāt dislike barn doors. I think they look good in certain settings and solve a problem in certain room layouts. We have a favorite hotel where they have barn doors on the bathrooms. A couple of times the doors were misaligned and we needed to call maintenance to fix them. I would think they require more maintenance than a regular door. In the old days people used pocket doors in these situations. We actually have a pocket door between our kitchen and living room. We have it open with the door permanently sealed away in the wall.
We have a pocket door between our master bath and closet. It works well.
We had a pocket door in our last house so that if we had guests, they could close off the back hallway and have an āensuiteā with the full bath and more privacy.
The former owners of our house used an oil based polyurethane on the white oak floors. The floors are very yellow. In places where they had area rugs, the floors have zero yellow in them. Oil based poly plus UV rays caused these floors to yellow. We are going to use the water based poly to prevent that from happening again.
I love pocket doors - they seem timeless
@AlmostThere2018 , I am interested to know the SW paint color you used.
I think where gray gets its bad rap is when it is paired with nothing but white and black. This combo makes the room seem very cold. If you use the gray as a neutral then pair it with warm decor and furniture, I think it avoids the coldness and becomes a very beautiful neutral backdrop. JMO.
I agree that gray needs to be paired with other colors and works as a nice neutral. There are also so many undertones to gray paint. The gray we have in our living room has brown undertones. Itās very warm and goes beautifully with the dark hardwood floors (original to the house). We picked very soft grey cabinets for the kitchen but the walls are a pale blue.
One reason we used a lot of gray was for resale. We plan to sell in the next 2-3 years and the people buying homes in our neighborhood are primarily young families (the homes are 4-5 bedrooms/good school district) and the younger people tend to like the look better than the brown and beige neutrals.
@deb922, I donāt actually mind the black on the window trim, but I hate the stripes on ceiling in that picture.
Barn doors are one of the sillier trends. Every time I have a client that wants one, I remind them that they might not be able to hang pictures behind them and they certainly donāt want any outlets or switches there.
I agree that vessel sinks are impractical for regular use, but I think if you find one you love a powder room is a good place to show it off.
For all of you who dislike gold and brassāwhat DO you like?
We have a bunch of pocket doors. I like them. Most of the time they remain open.
I like the kitchen open to the living area. We just raised the counter for a bar on one side which hides the kitchen mess.
Had some new waterproof vinyl planks put in and really love it for the ease in cleaning.
Donāt like vessel sinks either especially since the counter height is too low. But love to look at them. Decorative but not for daily use.
Honestly if I was looking for a new house (which Iām not) the main concern would be the layout and location. After that I can live with most anything.
I think in a lot of homes that the laundry room gets short shriftāitās really a work horse location and should be larger (at least have storage) and better organized. Iāve also been in many homes that really fail to take advantage of the views around themāhouses built on water with limited water views for example.
I like almost everything but brass/gold - brushed nickel, chrome, is he dark oil rubbed bronze.
My big compromise in this house was giving up a generous laundry room for a laundry closet. The only spot for a big space was the basement which I didnāt want. I ended up stacking our full sized washer and dryer, getting a laundry cart from Ikea, and installing a drying bar above the cart. Itās directly outside our master bedroom and has ended up being super.
Pocket doors have their own problems. You can insulate the wall where the pocket is. It gets noisy. If you have a pocket door for the bathroom, you will hear what goes on in the bathroom rather plainly.
I donāt see any point in condemning one or other. They can all be useful. Same for the color. I generally donāt like pocket doors but I have a huge multi slider that ends in a pocket. It was lesser of two evil. Between a bifold and a pocket, I chose a pocket.
@Nrsd4, Good to know since I am doing all white oak, doors, cabinets, trims.