Monday Morning Design Dilemma

The painters have been working at the house, but it's been difficult to show their progress because they've been doing a lot of prep work - filling nail holes, sanding, etc.  So it was nice to see the stair banister and post stained.  The color is just beautiful.

But seeing this actually caused us a little angst.  

We'd been planning on having the slider door painted white to match the window and door trim through the rest of the house, but now we were second guessing our decision and thought maybe we should carry that beautiful stain color over to the slider and really show them off.  They are beautiful doors, made with a really lovely wood.  They were chosen to frame the view and create a sense of room within the great room, so we thought maybe we really should stain them and draw more emphasis to them.

We didn't have much time to make a decision.  We talked about it and I even used my HomeDesigner program to do a quick sketch-up, but that didn't really help.  So Rob ran up to the house quickly this morning and snapped off some pictures so we could look at it from a couple of angles.

This is the view as you enter the great room from the mudroom.  You can see the windows in the dining nook and the slider.

Now we are all the way in the room and you can see the fireplace too. (which still needs to be moved over half an inch so it will be centered on the wall)

Here is the view from the front entry.  You can see the stained stair post and the hand rail in this view.

Turning just a little you can see the slider, the dining nook and the kitchen window all in one shot.

Do we want this broken up?  Do we want to add one more focal point to the room?

We thought maybe yes and then again maybe no.

So I did a very quick sketch-up showing both options using Publisher (I should have used Photoshop, but I'm not good enough).  I just drew in some lines that were the same color as the hand rail and added a box to represent the kitchen island.  Of course, the walls and trim will be painted, the floor will not be covered with pink paper, there will be actual cabinets in the kitchen and eventually, furniture in the room.  But, it still helped to see the basic look.

With the slider stained.

With the slider painted to match the other trim in the house.

Which do you like better?

We stared at it for a while and I'm pleased to say we both came to the same conclusion so there wasn't a lot of extra thinking and discussion needed.  We let Jesse know how to have the painter proceed and moved on with our day.