I couldn't agree more and sometimes it's nice to have a rough idea of what you want and let the strips, wood availability and your present moment artistic taste just take over. Some complicated designs look nice and I'm always interested in seeing them but you want to enjoy the building process and I personally feel the flow of working with your design idea and how the strips flow in the building often leads to nice visuals without a lot of planning. Always wet the wood to see where you are really going. Sometimes dry wood can be deceiving. There is no real white wood as long as you are using varnish. It will be lighter but the varnish just browns and over the years you will loose some contrast. I have old pictures of a stripper with a white (pine) deck. Great contrast. Now that boat is a gold tone deck.