Need to confirm colour scheme; Michelle?? Anyone?? Help!

Hi everyone,

After such a great response helping me finalise my external colour scheme, now i'd love the same assistance with our internals (and to be honest, we are finding this harder than externals!)

We are doing polished concrete floors, hoping for an off white with white pebble exposure - but this is to be confirmed by the builder yet. Because this isn't set in stone (haha) yet, I am aiming for colours that should go with anything - just in case the floors end up slightly different to what we had hoped for...

Bathroom & ensuite

I am hoping to use something similar to these colours for tiles/benches/etc:

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x391/j0anne04/bathrooms.jpg
* We are yet to confirm stone or laminate bench tops for bathrooms (pending budget) - but both options are viewed.

- New Basmati or Pure Mineralstone benchtops.
- Licorice Linea or white cupboards
- Dark floor tiles (they are a warm charcoal colour - sorry about the poor lighting)
- Large white wall tiles
- Feature strip vertical between top of bath hop and under window (with white tiles either side) - yet to decide how/where to incorporate into ensuite.

### Can everyone tell me if they prefer the dark (licorice linea) or white cupboards? I am leaning towards the licorice linea personally.

Laundry

Similar, but because this is downstairs it will have polished concrete floors.

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x391/j0anne04/laundry.jpg

Same benchtops as bathroom (laminate not shown, but same as in bathroom pic above) - we are having a build in cabinet in lieu of standard trough.. with licorice linea cupboards, and white tile splashback - may also add a feature strip for visual appeal along the wall also (does anyone think this will look silly?)

Kitchen

Well this room has me thrown. Not as easy as the others. I originally wanted New Basmati stone benches, with dark lower cupboards, and white cupboards above the stove.... then I started leaning towards all white, in case the floor caused contrast problems... My partner prefers the licorice linea, and i'm just not sure how much of it I want to use.

I was thinking perhaps the kickboard on the back of the island bench (where stools will go) and maybe the wall cupboards above stove - but open to suggestions. Here is a pic of our kitchen & WIP from our plans so you can try and visualise it... I've tried doing online 3D representations but cant design or find a room similar enough to ours...

http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x391/j0anne04/kitchen-1.jpg

Walk In Pantry

This room has cupboard doors on lower shelves, and then open shelves above the bench on far end wall. We will continue the colours in here - but we are considering laminate benchtops pending our newest quote (we want to add under floor heating, and stone in WIP & bathrooms may need to go to help cover the costs - a swap i'm happy to make).

Walls:

And last but not least - wall colours throughout.... I want something pretty neutral, so I am not limited with my colour schemes later on. We will also investigate feature walls once we have moved in and settled in a little... originally I wanted a white all over colour - but I now realise how many variants of white there is and it leaves me feeling rather helpless... and my partner is colour blind (with shades, anyway) so it looks like this one is all up to me! yikes!

I know this is a long post, but everyones help is greatly appreciated.

Jo x

Anyone brave enough to give me their opinions?

Michelle?

Anyone?

Hi Jo, I feel your pain...Took me ages to make up my mind, but in the end we have chosen Laminex Polar White for kitchen doors including overheads and New Basmati Essastone tops. Same combination for ensuite too. We are having a darker charcoal/brown tinged tile on the floor in ensuite and felt that as it was not a huge room, the darker doors would make it feel a bit dark and claustrophobic. In the laundry we went with the same polar white but thought stone was a bit overboard so chose Pure mineralstone laminex for the top.

In our current home (4 yrs old) we have warm oak floors and chose straight grain wenge (which is also a dark wood with straight line effect) on the upstand, sides and back of island bench with formica warm white doors (no overheads) & natural quartz squareform top and to be honest I am now really sick of it & any marks show up really easily as shiny patches.

I think you cant go wrong with an all white kitchen, always looks crisp and clean & so easy to change the look with a just a few bits & pieces.

Hope that helps

It does, thank you so much! I really do like the look of a nice clean white kitchen... what colour splash back would you do - white, or a colour to bring in the shades used on walls/other rooms? ... or go all out, and go an outrageous colour like red etc?

Also our colours are very similar cupboard wise (except for the dark colours) - how far along in your planning are you? The simple fact someone else chose similar/same colours makes me feel a little more relaxed about the whole thing

No probs Jo, glad I could help. There is nothing worse than second guessing your decisions once contracts have been signed and that is exactly what I have been doing lately. I have always gone with either all white or white/grey kitchen but last time thought I would go with something different & although people love it... I am truly over it!

As for splashbacks that is a difficult one. Same thing really of maybe going with something drastically out there & then getting fed up with it.

I would have liked a long thin landscape window above the bench on one wall but our kitchen is on the boundary & out of the question. So we are going for a mirrored splashback which will bring in the light & garden reflection & make the room bigger. Builder wants and arm and leg so have decided to do after handover.

Our slab went down last week so no more planning, just waiting. Oh and maybe some shopping too

BTW you may find this thread useful as there are some stunning kitchens that may inspire you and many are all white or white and dark. viewtopic.php?f=16&t=13838&hilit=show+me+your+kitchen

Thankyou kindly!

I hope you post about your progress, I'd love to read along - especially see the kitchen and bathrooms!

Will have a look at that post..

Oh btw - is a glass/mirror splashback hard to clean?

Not had a mirror splashback before Jo but in this home I have clear glass shower screens and before we first used them I cleaned & coated them with enduroshield available from most glass/shower screen places now. Through using a cheap Ikea squeegee after each shower the screen is as sparkling today as it was the day we moved in over 4 yrs ago, so I intend to use it again on my splashback, I am sure any marks will remove easily. Btw I also used this on my white tiles and the grout is almost as good as new too! It is the best $50 I have ever spent.

Hi, We have dark brown cupboards throughout the house and being matt the fingerprints drive us mad in the kitchen so I would recommend either white or a mix of white and dark. We have a glass splashback and it's easy to clean with Windex and a paper towel .. I do love a window splashback if you can fit it in ... good luck with your decisions!

Sorry!!!

If you want my attention you need to post in the
"decorating forum"
Most of the time that's the only forum I have time for, so I don't get to all the other forums.
I'll try and look over this over the weekend for you.

Whoops! Sorry Michelle.... i'll remeber that for future times. Your expertise is greatly appreciated!

My builder has suggested opononi in half strength for our walls... what do you think?

I like to keep all the light colours for the lower cupboards then darker for the wall cupboards.
That way if there are any little fingers around, the mess doesn't show up as much on the white cupboards.

I thought about doing a dark colour for a couple of my upper cupboards but I think I will tire of the colour.
And my kitchen is very small.

Nice colour, it will go with everything!