Are these custom order or stock? If they are stock I'd say pick the two you like and buy a box. Bring them home and lay out a larger area with them together. Then you can really see, even accounting for the variations. Take back the one you did not pick and buy the one you did.

To me there is a huge difference between various off whites and grays. They affect the temperature of a room a great deal, and can also clash with flooring and furnishings.

I am one of those people who can visualize a whole room from a little paint chip. My method for selecting a room color is very efficient because I don't overthink and I trust my gut. I gather up every last chip at the paint store that looks like a likely suspect. At home, I throw them all down on the floor of the room im painting, and immediately discard those that are obviously wrong for the flooring and lighting. Then I pick maybe five or six that look best, and put the rest aside.

I tape each chosen chip onto its own piece of white paper, then tape the paper to a wall with white artists tape. By having the chip on a white background, the existing wall color can't influence my perception of the color sample. When all the chips are hanging on the wall, I narrow and soften my focus, and see in my mind each color covering all the walls. I remove the ones I like least.

Now I am down to three chips that I like a lot. And it becomes a game of "this one, not this one", until i have my color.

Now I move my chosen color chip from wall to wall to visualize how it looks in different light. I leave it up a couple of days so I can keep on casually assessing if this is the one. If I'm not 100 percent sure, I'll have a sample can made up and paint a patch of the wall and let it dry, and continue to live with it.

But honestly, I have never really needed to paint a sample patch. I just knew.

The next part is unless you are covering white, paint a primer coat so that you'll get exactly what you chose.

The big box stores will mix small sample pots of color paints..Put them on poster board and put them up for few days to see how they look in different light.

As for tile, buy one..bring it home and lay it down..if you don't like it, take it back and exchange it.

The more designer sorts of places will let you check out tile sample boards with just your credit card for a deposit..

All well worth a few bucks and few days time.

And I am with Bernard..White is not just white..I am about to go for my 5th or 6th version of it in my home...some are yellow, some are blue, green..You really have to try them in your own space and light with your decor.

Mik and WTG

And no, not custom order.

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The existing floor color seems quite different from photo to photo. Not sure why.

Partly that might be lighting, the weather here is horrible and we just have the overhead light to go by. Also, the colors in the existing floor are quite variable, so that’s part of it.

I’m leaning to 1, 2, or 4 right now (4 is the cheapest of those three)

BTW HD does have those displayed with a few more planks together, so we tried to look at them a lot in the store.

But yeah' we don’t want to buy boxes of three different options! I think we need a sunny day...

piqué, re painting, I don’t think I could do it that way! Oh and we are going to primer. I think we’re close to deciding but now we’re just waiting for a sunny day to have a look at it in good light

WTG, re the direction of the flooring, we’re thinkng we would do the new flooring parrellel to the existing vinyl floorkng, which would make it perpendicular to the original hardwood flooring.

ETA but maybe not, if it’s parallel to existing vinyl, it’s not lengthwise for the tv room, and it might look better matched to the room...

Great job house hunting, SK! Looks like a real find, and the piano room just says it was intended for you.

I'm avoiding any discussion of colors and flooring, because after living (involuntarily*) in my present house for three decades, I'm absolutely overwhelmed with how to fulfill its aesthetic and remediation needs on account of living here alone for most of that time, except for two very needy children. Their needs segued into a period of my own numerous health problems as I age.

Surely I'm not the only aging single without family in a position to take over the many tasks even a relatively simple estate demands. After all, there are without children or children's spouses able to execute an estate even if they lived nearby. The ideal is of course, to leave "one's affairs in order" but that can be easier said than done if enough things get tangled owing to health and unfortunate family situations.

Guess I'll have to bite a mouthful of bullets and forge ahead, hopefully after finding talented/honest helpers to superintend remaining jobs. It's very hard to prioritize especially with limited mobility/and other skills. Every time I read (so frequently lately!) of the immense demands of executorships (even after deaths which were basically organized prior to their occurrance), I wonder how singles/limited households manage.

One thing I've heard repeatedly on this forum, is the tsunami of work needed to finalize an estate. Especially if one hasn't been able to "get one's house in order", I wonder what businesses exist to help settle things when survivors are limited or surviving families are unable to meet an estate's legal needs. I can't picture my one competent son managing - at least, not while maintaining his great but very demanding job (apart from it's being thousands of miles away).

Suggestions welcomed about what professionels exist to replace missing families when it comes to executing an estate, including managing sale of a house and their contents, incuding repairs. Surely all this couldn't be turned over to the legal profession without using up remaining assets. And who oversees the overseers?

Others around my age, seem to worry about many of the same things, especially the many lacking spouses and/or able children - not even counting unpredictable health problems.

Besides which my greatest non-talent (hoping the term is understandable) is color and decor. Not knowing how this house can be made affordably saleable (in addition to the money sink it's already been), sends chills down my titanium spine!

How lovely it would be to clear out the whole house, organizing and repairing what's needed, working from empty like yours! I can't quite picture hiring a decorator for such a modest house. I'm so fed up with it, never having bought it by choice (*the old story about being forced to purchase this former rental because of a child's life-threatening allergies/asthma).

I congratulate you, SK, on pulling together all your nesting needs thus far - beginning with completing your degree and landing a professorship in your specialized academic niche (their good fortune as least as much as yours). Now there's the happy ending to your house purchase. Saved notes on your house projects, shopping and now remodeling, will, I hope, help me with my own outstanding jobs. Unfortunately, it will all be at far greater expense for me, since I'll have to delegate paid others for most of it. What services, though?

Sorry about this long tangent from the anxiety attack a discussion of color choices brought on!

Amanda, I can understand your anxiety! Not having any children, we’ll face those questions ourselves soon enough. I don’t have any words of wisdom for you, only of comfort.

Look what I found in my new backyard today!!



P.S. it's maybe just under 2 feet tall. I noticed it a while back, except that it was pouring rain and I could hardly see. I thought it was maybe an interestingly shaped tree stump. I made a mental note to go take a look and then forgot all about it until today.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
Amanda, I can understand your anxiety! Not having any children, we’ll face those questions ourselves soon enough. I don’t have any words of wisdom for you, only of comfort.

Comfort and care are often the greatest wisdom. After all, some problems don't really have any solutions per se. Thank you.

(What a wonderful surprise to find in your new back yard! Seems like about as good an omen as there could be.)

quote:

Originally posted by Amanda:
Suggestions welcomed about what professionals exist to replace missing families when it comes to executing an estate, including managing sale of a house and their contents, including repairs. Surely all this couldn't be turned over to the legal profession without using up remaining assets. And who oversees the overseers?

In the case of my Mom's estate it was dead simple and did not cost much.

My Mom died in 2007 after a long illness. Before she died she met with a wills and estates attorney who wrote up a trust. She was instructed on how to use the trust to make sure everything went smoothly when she died. I think the whole deal cost her about $1,800.

It was all quite straightforward after that. All of the big stuff was in the name of the trust - house, car, investments, bank accounts. Everything was to be divided equally between us four kids. I was named as the trustee (executor?) and it was stipulated that I would get paid a certain amount to handle the paperwork. That was about it.

I knew about the trust but had never seen it. She told me where she kept the notebook with the trust documents in it along with copies of the necessary account numbers and such for the investments, the title to the car, and the deed to the house. It was easy enough to find - right where she said it would be.

After she died I went to the lawyer who drew up the trust and paid him a couple of $hundy to explain how it all worked. After he did that I never needed to talk to him again. There was no probate. I opened a trust checking account, sold everything off and distributed the proceeds.

The only slightly tricky thing was that I had to have my CPA do the taxes for the trust itself because the investments increased in value during the time it took to sell them. He knew what to do and I did not worry about it. We kids paid no tax on the distributions - apparently we didn't have to.

State laws, tax situations, estates, family dynamics, etc. vary all over the place but maybe this will work for you. It's certainly simple enough.

Now the house.

My Mom's house was not particularly cluttered but was full of the sort of things you accumulate after living 50 years in one place.

After the funeral we 4 kids met there and looked it over, each of taking one or two things of particular value to each of us. None of us wanted much - our houses are already full. Some dishes, tools, a photo album, a few mementos. That left a house full of stuff to sell, donate or otherwise dispose of.

My younger sister lived with my Mom for the last few years of her life, a situation that worked out well for all concerned. When Mom died my sister was afraid she would have nowhere to live as she had no job at that time. We all decided that she should live in that house rent free for 6 months, her only duties being emptying it out and keeping up the yard, etc. None of us wanted whatever proceeds she might have gotten from selling all that stuff and to this day I have no idea what she did with most of it. I do know she gave a number of individual items to Mom's friends, which was nice.

During the last three years they kept up the house but did not improve it. There was no reason, really, other than to keep water from getting in and the appliances working. She talked about making it more modern for resale but it didn't make any sense. The last thing she needed was a construction project. I cleaned and painted the place after my sister moved out, and I sold it.

My friend's parents died about the same time and he faced a similar trust and a similar situation. In his case he hired an estate sale company who took care of everything in a very professional fashion. He told me it wasn't cheap but there was no way he was going to handle all of it as he had a good job and lived out of state. After the sale was over he hired a maid service to come in and clean it and sold it as-is.

Perhaps this arrangement would work for you as well.

(Sorry about the thread hijack, SK. Perhaps Amanda will start a new thread and I will move my responses there.)

quote:

Sorry about the thread hijack

No apologies necessary! This is the best of WTF -- life advice that we all need!!

I haven't yet gotten to the point where I walk into Home Depot and say "my invisible friend on the internet told me I should buy X for my house project, where would I find that?" but I'm close!

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my invisible friend on the internet

Mr WTG refers to y'all as my imaginary friends.