To Retro or Not to Retro.

This past weekend Greg and I made progress in leaps and bounds. The Nursery is officially electrically charged, there is a working ceiling fan connected to the niftiest switch I've ever seen. There are no holes in the walls, and everything has spackled once. Sanding, more spackling, more sanding, painting, and flooring are next on the nursery to-dos.

We also moved 3/4 of the working kitchen into the dining room. We're still working out kinks and there's still a good amount that needs to be removed from the kitchen into the dining room (plates? cups? who needs those...).

Work on remodeling the kitchen is to officially begin on April 24th.

Exciting.

And a lot of pressure.

I'm usually responsible for the design vision behind ONE room remodel at a time. It gives me a chance to really mull it over aka obsess. I'm a little overwhelmed with having the nursery AND the kitchen going on at the same time.

The Nursery is mostly decided I think.

This is the nursery I decided to use as inspiration:


The Color on the walls is Benjamin Moore, Apple. Greg is appalled by it. However, Here is a link to the same exact nursery without the sunlight streaming in. So while he'll argue with me till he's blue in the face about painting the nursery that first color, he's totally fine with that second one. And the fact that they're the same color means that I win.

We bought six of these table clothes:
From bed bath and beyond while they were on sale. We'll be using them as curtains.

We're getting black furniture - Black crib, black dresser, black chair.

There are some details that are up for grabs, but here's the basic design:


Crib bedding is NOT decided. That IS the correct rug. Ugly Dolls are definitely coveted. And those Graziela Prints are also much coveted. Obviously the color will not be quite so seizure-bright. I'd love to hear what you think!



So now, I'm slowly and reluctantly turning my attention to the kitchen - which, for obvious reasons, I find completely daunting.

There are some choices that have already been made for me. We're keeping the budget on this one as low as possible - so we're definitely doing an Ikea kitchen and we're definitely doing their standard white (least expensive) cabinets.

We will be keeping the same fridge and almost definitely we are keeping our stove - which works just fine, so I can get over the fact that it's not the prettiest stove on the block.

I'm really struggling with the relationship between the Floor, the Backsplash, the Countertop, and the wall color.

I love black Countertops. I especially love those black stone countertops with a tiny bit of sparkle to them. (Not yet priced out) Assuming that we get a lovely black countertop, what should the floor and backsplash be? Should the only color in the room be the painted wall color, which will only really be visible at the top of the room above the cabinets?

We've looked into vinyl flooring versus tile flooring, and Although vinyl is a bit less expensive, Greg has more experience with tile and we both think it'll wear better than vinyl. So we're looking into (preferably $5 per square foot or less) tile. Here's the look I like:


I love black and white checkered flooring.

First of all, they're fairly large tiles - easier to deal with. Second, we can probably get a good deal on black and white tile for floor! Third, I think it would look great with black countertops and a simple white subway tile backsplash.

Drawback? Greg hates it.

He hates the black and white checkered-ness.

I don't know how to get around it!

So let's ignore the floor for now.

What if, instead of a plain white gloss subway tile for a backsplash, we made it something more like this:

Or

These are Glass subway tile back splashes. I can't figure out exactly what that second picture has that makes it so pretty... but the tile I've priced out that is in that first picture is probably about $15.00 per square foot making it quite a bit more expensive than what we'd guessed we might want to pay for it.

And THEN, do I still do black countertops? What do we do on the floor then? White tile? Are white tile floors okay or do they seem too laundry-room?

I'm confused and frustrated.

What do you all think of the black and white checkered floor? Are there any rules I should be following for what kind of color relationship the backsplash, countertop, and floor should have? Are there rules I should follow for creating a generic (yuck) kitchen that will appeal to all types of people or should I feel free to go with the flow - Is black and white checkered too much personality? What about blue or green subway glass tile? What about this?



Opinions welcome!!