Frontline rebuilds his house

Ugh. I'd love to give you advice, but there's just so much I don't know--my house decided a lot of things for me (or heavily influenced my decisions). Oh, and budget is always a factor. Both how much you can afford to spend and whether it is "lipstick on a pig". For example, I really wanted soapstone countertops in my kitchen. But for an 800 SQ house with 7' ceilings in a blue-collar neighborhood in the far-out suburbs, there was no way any buy would pay extra for them. My house will either wind up a starter house for a Mexican or Russian family or a retirement home for someone that can't maintain a McMansion and negotiate stairs any more.

Any advice I could give would likely entail me walking the grounds and asking some questions. About the best I can do is mention the thought processes on my house renovations.

I had a little cottage that was fundamentally in decent shape with a problem or two--but mostly just neglect and a couple poor decisions. (I plan to omit some of the renovation details like tearing down the "Crap Room" and redoing the facade for the porch for now).

Place was built in the early 1950s and its last re-do had been in Early 21st Century Rental Property--beige walls, white trim, beige carpeting, vinyl in the kitchen and bath with a plastic tub surround. It had its original 1950s Davy Crockett kitchen cabinets (think stained wood with faux wrought iron fixtures), although the cabinets had acquired a coat of white paint (still the frontiersman fixtures, though). Since, IMO, the 50s were a terrible time for architecture, I went with more of a late 1920s feel (which is also accurate for a cottage). 1" tiles in a white with black pattern in the bathroom, brushed steel knobs and clamshell pulls in the kitchen. Soapstone (laminate) countertops. I yanked the terrible tub surround, big clunky vanity, and 1970s dressing room light in the bath and put in a pedestal sink with subway tile around the tub.

If it was in the budget, I might've went with subway tile wainscoting, but instead I did beadboard. Found period-looking lights for the bathroom and a medicine cabinet that had hardware that matched the kitchen.

In the kitchen, I'd had wainscoting--but it was terrible. I'm talking painted particle board. So I put in beadboard. This, along with the aforementioned hardware helped to unify the bath & kitchen. For most of the house I went with a cream color for the walls, with white trim and an accent wall in each room. a sort of brick red on the ends of the living room, a deep blue for the main bedroom, and an olive for the guest bedroom (that was initially my bedroom). I actually liked the original beige color with the olive accent wall, so that bedroom got a darker color for the secondary walls. Bathroom, the wainscoting was white to match the trim and the walls were a robin's egg blue. Kitchen wound up a sort of gold/buttercup.

The gold is partly practical--hides grease better (Oh, I forgot to mention the subway tile backsplashes in the kitchen to match the tub surround in the bath), while the blue was a classic color for the bath (actually in demo-ing the tub surround I was surprised to find that was the original color (not hot pink)). The light blue in the bath also tied in with the dark blue in the master bedroom. Dark blue for the master bedroom was partly because it was a nice, stately color and partly because it would go well with the more gold/orange color of pines and oaks.

The green in the guest bedroom was the color complement of the red in the living room. Then I added green accents in the living room (pillows, curtains) and red accents in the bedroom (dresser, picture frames, pillows) to pull the rooms together.

To add a little "pop" to everything, on white walls I went with brass electrical plates (switches, plugs). It isn't entirely coincidental that I selected USMC colors (red and gold, dark blue, light blue, white, tan and olive) for the interior and on the outside I pretty much kept the original house color--a battleship grey that has a bluish tone with white trim. But for contrast I painted the door a bright fire engine red and when I redid the roof I went with a slate colored shingle--almost black. Then I threw on some black shingles. Pretty much you've got your dress blues colors on the outside. Not that anyone but me is going to pick up on that, I don't think.

When I finally had the nerve to tear up the carpeting I found cedar in the bedrooms--really too soft for proper floors, but with rugs and good care, it should be fine. Gave it an oil finish to darken it and then threw on the polyurethane. The living room did have hardwood, but it was a mixture--some oak, some walnut, etc. I tried leaving it natural, but wound up doing a walnut stain. This actually worked quite well and I just happened to have bought walnut toned bookcase and tv table even before seeing the floor.

So to reiterate, I really can't give any advice because the house is partly a reflection of your tastes and needs to complement your stuff and is partly a reflection of what will be most flattering to its layout and architectural style. Generally light colors make small rooms look larger (as do plenty of mirrors, but a dark floor can also make a small room look larger. And I used plenty of dark colors in a very small house, but I'm quite happy with the results.

As far as wood floors, I like oak. But I tend to favor a very traditional feel for a place. If you ...cool. I was about to suggest mahogany over cherry and then I went back and saw those were your top two choices. Dunno about African or Brazilian, but I like the figure and depth mahogany has over cherry. But I think if you want that you need to spring for wood, not laminate.

Have you looked at Zodiac counters? It's a quartz-based material, looks a lot like granite only with more color options and you never need to seal it. Impervious to heat and stains, too.

the laminate flooring will turn out horrible, better to go with the engineered or actual wood (the price for it is really low right now, about $6-7sqft for decent quality)

Out of rep, but that is always part of the equation: How much is your time worth? I'd say you made the right call. I only painted my cabinets (not stained) and they're still not where I'd like them.

Light granite or a darker shade? What are you doing for the floor?

Again, I hesitate to offer ala carte advice, but when I think cherry shaker cabinets and granite countertops, I think 12" travertine tile (in an asymmetric pattern).

Not necessarily - not if it's done right. I've seen both laminate and engineered and sometimes, unless you know, you can't tell a difference.

I recommend Mennonites. They normally solve my problems.

Something you might consider, you can also use engineered flooring or laminate flooring as a wall treatment. Use it like wainscoting with some moulding on the top and bottom edges to dress it up.

The middle bathroom picture is the same tile I had picked out a couple years ago - never did redo that bathroom ...

I looked at bathroom cabinets that stood off the floor - about 4 inches - it raised the bathroom cabinet/counter and I could sweep and mop under them. No idea why that's a big deal to me, but it is.

and ..., is your pool/patio area screened in? I'm so jealous.

When we renovated the house we bought in '07 we did a lot of the work ourselves. Almost all the demolition was us, and most of the structural stuff. We contracted for the tile - a non-trivial skill and we wanted it done properly - and a kitchen designer who brought in a construction outfit to do cabinets and counters and stuff. These guys also did some electrical and plumbing, but we did other electrical stuff ourselves. Easy things like swapping out switches and outlets, that sort of crap. We set our own sinks and toilets, too, rather than pay the plumber to do it. Luckily my wife's father is skilled at this stuff, and I've picked up a few tricks myself over the years, so we were well able to do a lot of things ourselves.

Yea, I was watching a lot of DIY shows at the time. I think I would probably have been able to handle the tile, but setting the cabinets would have to havebeen contracted out for me.

the yard idea sounds cool Frontline. I had a similar situation between my yard and the neighbor's yard. The fence sits at the lowest point, then a steep upgrade about a foot and a half to the patio. When I left, I'd been there two years without any real ideas on how to fix that spot.

I loved that show. Much better than This Old House - which was still a good show, but that guy ... Bob(?) would rather chat with the camera than show you what his workers were doing.

Good luck with the solar heating system for the pool. I've heard nothing but good things about those.

A couple thoughts, in no particular order:

Home shows always seem to fall in the trap of needing to top themselves. Waaaay back when "This Old House" started, Bob and Norm would show you how to install fiberglass batting insulation. Eventually it became weird and esoteric on how to install a robotic bidet and stuff like that. Same went for "Home Time." "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition", they started out figuring out practical ways to renovate a problem home. Now they tear them all down to install garish monstrosities with robotic bidets: "Little Billy likes Transformers, doesn't he? Let's do an Optimus Prime robotic bidet in his bathroom!"

Complementary colors and contrasts work for room design. That's why the green-colored stone countertops work well with the red-toned wood cabinets. You just don't want to make it too obvious. If something is really, really blue, you want to go with a very subtle orange, for example--with navy blue walls, a red oak floor will do the trick.

That bathroom photo, the wallpaper is an absolute mistake, in my opinion. Adding another stone texture with the stone tiles and stone countertops, in a color that is a midpoint between the two just makes it all blend together and get muddy. The white doors don't work either, IMO (should match the cabinet), but I digress. You could make some cream color work for the walls, but personally my first choice would be some shade of olive or possibly even an avacado.

I never knew how much every home needed a billiard room until the time I went to a party at a place where the housemate that owned the dining room table moved out and they replaced it with a pool table. That said, what color will the felt be? The traditional green? If so, I don't know if I'd go with green for the walls. It could work--more later--but, one-trick pony that I am, I'd favor some kind of dark red. "Brick red," "rust red," and Moroccan red" all come up with hues that are sort of what I'd think of--a brown-red. You could make a green felt and green walls work, though. A monochromatic palette is something other people use very well. But if you go that route you've got to go whole hog. Traditional green felt on a dark walnut table (maybe just a hint of green to the wood hue), Matching walnut floors, picture frames, and furniture. Possibly even walnut wainscoting. Actually now that I think about that, I really like it. It ties in with the pool table, where you've got wood sides with a green top. As an added benefit, then you get chair rails to lean pool cues against so you don't have chalk marks on your wall. Again, I'd go with a fairly neutral green for the walls, some kind of olive color. And probably a cream colored ceiling (maybe just a hint of green in that as well). Definitely a brass pool table light with green-green shades. Probably brass electrical plates (switch and plug) to pick up on the light. Now that I think about it, a reddish hue to your wood--as long as it is a dark, dark wood would also work with that sort of color scheme.

A final note: That blue you like works well with a comparable shade of yellow too. Yellow isn't actually the complement of blue, but they are both primaries and they work well together. Blue walls with a pastel yellow ceiling (with the white plaster accents) or the pastel blue ceiling with a mustard/ochre wall would look nice, I think.

Of course that is all just my thoughts. Take them for what you will.

Oh and thanks for the photos. They give me a direction to go from. Since I think visually, they are more helpful than "Here is what I like..." .

Oh, one final design tidbit (that I think I mentioned earlier): A technique I picked up in [art] painting is "a light, a bright and a dark." A good example of this is, I went with a black (dark) roof and shutters on my facade, a (for lack of a better word) battleship grey (light) for the primary color, and a (bright) red door. The glossy white trim is bright and light. The room I type this from has a dark blue accent wall and curtains, light, bright cream colored walls, and bright brass fixtures.

Your pin thing reminds me of a high-tech, less redneck version of what I did when I poured the slab for the garage. It had an unmortared cinderblock footing on one side, under a beam. So I left a block in every 6-8 feet, dug out and pulled the rest of the blocks. Then when my concrete guy came in, the slab ran under the beam and took the weight off the cinderblocks. Sort of the opposite of what you did.

Cherry is good for the cabinets. One of the nicer kinds of woods that not a lot of people buy.

Personally I like Knotty Alder with a rustic finish.

Once the repairs are complete, does the insurance company have to recalculate your policy? What are the chances of a repeat?

Negatory. This is what you want. We used one when we did our house and it goes thru tile, old linoleum, glued-down hardwood, anything. Saved us a huge amount of labor.