Thanks @collage1.
Phew. Iāve been spraying Windex on my quartz for ten years. I swore they told me to use it.
I have had most of my downstairs repainted this spring. Picking paint colors was very complicated and traumatic for me. I have at least 20 samples colors from Sherwin Williams, who gives you way too much and charges too much for samples.
I have gorgeous custom oak woodwork, and I wanted it to pop. I went with Dovetail Gray from SW for my family room and it looks awesome. Unfortunately, on the adjoining living room/foyer accent wall, it looks blue. Went with Repose Gray in most of the rest and Clary Sage in the kitchen. That does look great with my white oak inset cabinets. 20 years of cream paint was too much for me. Iām sure the gray days are numbered now that I have used it.
Still have bathroom and office to paint. The office has a ton of heavy furniture 
Need new carpet but I may get tired of living with reno projects before that gets done.
Also building a deck off my screened porch. We wanted capped composite. I am so sick of maintaining wood. A lot of research later, decided to go with TimberTech Legacy or Tropical. Whoaā¦still recovering from the price estimate.($4,800 for decking and railings for a 12āx16āāmaterials only). We had a small deck there, 4āx12ā, and I always felt like I stepped from the porch and fell out and there was nowhere to put the grill.
We have purchased in a townhome community; our unit will not be ready until October, While we describe our purchase as being like buying a car off of the lot, we have made a few changes. Of course the model home has every upgrade available, we decided to buy as is for the most part. The only changes we made were to add recessed lighting as it is best to do that before the home is completed, and the model had a waterfall island which we loved, so we splurged! The laundry room does not include cabinets, and the builder wanted twice what I could have it done for, so we will wait until we close to add the cabinets. My husband is excited about putting in Container store Elfa shelving in all the closets, so we have asked that they do not put in the one piece of ventilated shelving they include 
If boggles my mind that they can sell the home for so much and have some furnishing that are high grade, but then they put in a $10 piece of shelving in the closets.
@BunsenBurner our kitchen counters are Cambria in New Quay. Some of the other models had granite, but we love the look of the quartz.
@coralbrook the paint color that was selected for our home was SW Accessible Beige with SW Aesthetic White trim and SW Pearly White for the ceiling and non walk in closets; I hope I like it all together!!
We are waiting for a quote to re-do the hall bathroomārip out the tile and use solid surface for all the walls and matching solid surface for the counter and sink, replace the shower doors on both bathrooms, replace all the mirrors (they are de-silvering). The plumber came to measure a few days ago and it has been silent since then. No idea when they will come up with any quote.
^^ iām painting something gray right now. a bathroom vanity. trying to learn how to use a sprayer for the first time and itās been hard so far! but hereās my question: if gray is so popular, but it will be āoutā soon because of overuse, then what will be āin?ā Iām hoping it stays around for awhile now that iāve lost all of my taupe & red & terra cotta walls to light gray.
Wellā¦I loved gray and maroon for wedding colors in 1984, so I know I liked gray long before it was popular. Walls are repaintable. I keep telling myself that. Capped composite deckingānot so much! Every time my mom comes over, she makes rude comments about how gray is ādepressingā
@sherpa, your new home sounds fabulous!
Also, perhaps everyone knows this but quartz has some (about 8%) man-made components in it while quartzite is 100% natural stone. Perhaps this is why windex is OK on quartz but not quartzite?
@BunsenBurner, thanks for starting this thread.
Supposedly grey is the new āneutralā
The main trend change is from warms to cools back to warms. Cool colors are the trend right now
Success. Mr. plumbed both sinks in the kitchen, installed Talis M faucets from Costcoā¦ I stained 1/2 of the monster deck. Used Sikkens stain$$$$ā¦ It is supposed to last. In a couple of years, that cedar will be ripped out and replaced with something that does not need staining. Some sort of stone deck.
@BunsenBurner Sikkens is the best stain. It usually lasts about five years for us. Iāve had people twice knock on the door and ask what I used when it was fresh.
Iām getting roof estimates and just had a tree taken down; both indirect effects of Hurricane Matthew last fall. Not very exciting.
Iāve never heard of Sikkens but Iām all for stains and paint that endures and keeps protecting wood. H installed the faucet set in our master bathroom and it works like a champ. Heās going to let the plumbers put in the new faucet set for the hall bathroom, if they ever get back to us with a quote and we decide to go ahead.
I actually think Sikkens is a European company. They make a lot of marine finishes too. I have a small old boat with mahogany so Iāve used other products they make. Home Depot now stocks a few of their deck stains but I used to have to go to a professional painter supply house to buy it. There are a few reviews here. I canāt imagine that itās not stocked in HI. Itās just not advertised as much as Thompsonās. http://www.consumerreports.org/products/wood-stain/sikkens-cetol-srd-semi-transparent-71235/overview/ Not that I believe Consumer Reports much any more.
Sadly youāre right. H says that Sikkens is too hard to get in HI. He did consider it and was aware of it tho, @OspreyCV22. 
Why not??
Just finished having the second of our 2 upstairs bathrooms updated.
The first was our master bath which we did 2 years ago. That was the more complex one, as we replaced our standard size tub with a shorter glass enclosed shower. The shorter length allowed us more counter space in the vanity area which is next to the shower. But that meant moving walls and plumbing. For the wall where the shower plumbing is, we made it ājust wide enoughā to accommodate the pipes, so the glass shower goes around a corner ā¦ Letting lots of light in the room. Went with grey porcelain tile for the floor and shower (Gazzini Move Gray) and cabinets in a dark grey wood (I canāt describe them but they are brownish grey wood). Iām in love with that bath!
The second bath (the main bath) was just finished a couple weeks ago. We had replaced the tub prior to the first project since it had a small leak. So this project did all the other updates. Used the same Gazzini tile, light grey painted vanity with a marble-look quartz countertopsā¦ with BM Santorini Blue walls. Looks great!!!
Hoping to update the kitchen in a year or so, so collecting ideas!!
Great idea for a thread!
Eta, forgot who was wondering about the fire place insert but we had a gas log put in our wood burning fireplace a few years ago. It wasnāt too big of a dealā¦the biggest thing was putting in the propane tank and running the gas lines. And now I can probably use that to convert to a gas stove when I do the kitchen!!!
Regarding siding, two houses on our block are now painted gray. One is a very dark color and they painted the very 1950s stones the same shade. Itās actually quite handsome. When we pulled off the barn red aluminum siding off the back of our house we could see that the original siding was a very dark charcoal color. So we replaced it with Hardieboard Iron Gray https://www.jameshardie.com/Color-and-Design/Live-Colorfully/Iron-Gray The garage is now that color too. Next year weāll probably get rid of the rest of the aluminum siding and make it iron gray as well.
@mathmom , love that color!!! (can you tell from my post above, Iām partial to greys??)
I think we are all going to get sick of gray soon. The interior designer I worked for had a lovely pale gray she used in a lot of rooms. One of the kids bedrooms is painted that color, Itās 1555 now called āWinter Orchardā. On my laptop it looks like a horrible beige, but itās really just a slightly warm gray.
For trim and ceilings our entire house is BM 876 Alabaster. It looks good with everything.
Away from this thread for a day and boy, did it take off! In answer to a question about my subfloor - the tile will be replacing builder-grade marble tiles, so itās the same kind of floor. Heās demoing whatās there and replacing the mud job and whatever else he needs to do. Iām just nervous about the timingā¦if he starts on the 7th I think weāre fine.
Gosh, so many DIYers on CC. Itās like pulling teeth to get my H just to edge and mulch the garden beds. He actually told me to try to find someone to hire to do it. 4 yds of mulch still sitting in driveway and only three beds have been edged. He used to do small jobs around the house - like fixing a leaky faucet, but not any more.
We also just finished having bathrooms gutted and remodeled. Iām ecsatic with how they turned out. Next project is adding patio off the deck. Likely not until next summer, but Iāll start getting estimates later this summer. Several trees also need to be trimmed. Iāll wait until late fall, after leaves have fallen, to have that done.