Hi Mc Hudd Sorry for taking so long getting back to you. I was having too much Solstice fun with my family and friends. Now to reply to some of your answers. When you say contact paper is it the stuff that use to be called MacTac? The stuff used to line kitchen cupboards. If it is go to a really good paint store and have them contact the experts to see what would be the best steps to take to solve your dilemma. If it is not MacTac you are referring to great. The sad part I have to tell you is that you are probably going to have to peel off all the paint that you worked so hard to put up. Once that is done you have to start all over again. First clean very well, rinsing the walls thoroughly. Let dry, sand all the walls, damp wipe the walls with a rag to get all the dust off, and again let dry. Next patch and prime. Primer is only meant to be applied if you are going to paint within 12-36 hours after that you have to reprime to walls. This is because primer is very porous and readally absorbes anything is the air. Especially if you are cooking and are a smoker. It is surprising how fast it takes to get dirty. If the primer is left to long you will have wash the walls over again. I would suggest not using the Kilz primer, I would go with a different Zinsser product. They have a couple of really good heavy duty quick dry specialty primers. Look for one that is designed to go on glass and melamine. When you paint it is not crucial if there is a couple of days between coats unless you do a lot of cooking like I do. Then you are better off applying the second coat after the first has compleately dried. Which is 6-8 hours for latex paint and 18-24 hours for oil paint. Mind you if you are using a really dark colour then that rule does not apply. It take longer for the paint to dry when it is a dark colour. You can add an extra 2-4 hours for latex paint and an extra 2-6 hours for oil paint Next, is the Walmart paint the best that they had or was it their inexpensive brand? If it was the cheaper stuff, you need to try a paint store and get a much higher quality paint. You pay more money now but you don't have touch as often or repaint as soon. Two-five years with lower quality as compared to ten-twenty years with a better grade paint. If you use latex paint it takes one month to cure(get hard), so you can't wash the walls if they get dirty. It will take even longer if you are using dark colours. The benefit is there is not much smell. If you are using oil it only takes one week to one and half weeks to cure depending on the colour. A great way to cover up the smell of the oil paint is to have the people mixing the paint add you favorite extract flavouring. IE:vanilla, almond, peppermint,etc.... As long as it is clear in colour. It does not effect to paint quality. Usually one teaspoon for a quart and one tablespoon for a gallon. I hope that I have not overwhelmed you with all this information. I was trying to be as thorough as possible. Ciao for now Nickie

Of the ones you posted, I like nos. 1, 5, and 6. I really like 6, but it certainly would take you into the land of "red"; you may have to repaint the red wall in case it clashes, but I'm wondering if you could even paint the accent wall in that blue/gray? 2. in my opinion looks kind of blah 4. is very dark 3. and 7. are nice (I like blues and gray) but definitely would take you into a cool direction and may not work with the red 8. has the action in the middle where your ottoman is. Also, for whatever reason, I find rugs with a medallion more formal and old fashioned. Do you have a Homegoods or TJ MAxx in your area? Also, our local Costco had a sale of Safavieh rugs yesterday.

thank you all for the painting advice. i think i will bite the bullet and take it down, sand and spray again. my contractor is not gonna be happy... localeater, I ordered the light from a houzz marketplace vendor. But unfortunately, have had many issues, extremely long shipping delays, no direct vendor communication (all communication is delayed, done only thru houzz customer service relaying messages from vendor), then the whole color issue, plus more delays. i would recommend buying it elsewhere for faster resolution of potential issues (many places sell it). The light itself is from the Murray Feiss Botanic collection. It is very high quality, very heavy metal and the floral glass is really nice in person. I ordered the pewter, which came in an appropriately marked box, but inside it was their aged brass color, a very dark brown/black color. I have yet to see the aged pewter color in person, lol. I think this may be a manufacturing issue since they sent me the same light twice now. Here is a link below http://www.feiss.com/fa2481-pg1/Botanic-Lighting-Collection.htm

Even thin lights may show when you are sitting and look into the kitchen. It seems most new kitchen installs are done with a light rail added to hide the lights behind. We did an update several years ago and kept our old cabinets which had no light rail or moulding below the boxes. DH is rather handy and we bought some oak (our cabinets are oak) corner moulding about 3/4 or an inch wide. I got stain matched up at a good paint store. Cloverdale I believe and they can make stain to match if you bring in a door from your cabinets. We installed that below the cabinets and I stained and varnished the. They gave a little update to the cabinet look and do a great job of hiding our UCL's. They look like they were always on the cabinets and match perfectly. He also installed our UCL and drilled small holes in the bottom of the cabinet, fished the wire thru them and then behind, thru the wall studs up to a soffit where we have access. Wired in an on and off and dimmer switch in our Zephyr fan hood since it has lots of room in the metal body. Virtually no wire showing and the light switch is with the fan light switch. DH is so innovative!