Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Mirror Options

Jon was out of town this weekend, and gave me leave to make the mirror decision myself, so i spent the time focused on finding some solutions.  I hit up HomeGoods and a few thrift shops in search. Here is what i found.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Quickie Update - Kitchen

Cabinets are going in! This kitchen is starting to resemble a kitchen!

Floor stain UPDATE update

So i peeked in to the house for the first time in over a week.  because the floors has been curing and we had to stay off - also, I've been super busy and just didn't have time to snoop around.

I had been a bit concerned about the floors because the photos our contractor had sent us of the applied darker stain, once drier than the pic Jon sent,  looked really blotchy and streaky - just showing too much of the wood grain - making the floors look high contrast and super textured.


Monday, June 20, 2016

Floor Stain UPDATE

so it turns out we had to go a bit darker than we had originally wanted. we had first liked this golden honey shade for the floors.



Friday, June 17, 2016

Mirror Hunt!

OMG it is hard to find a bathroom mirror!  I mean, i'm only looking for something spectacular, unique, fun, classy, period-appropriate and functional - why should that be so hard?

ok, so i am perhaps being overly particular about this selection but i strongly feel that in BOTH of our bathrooms we have made simple, elegant, classic selections for all the things like tile, faucets, vanity, light fixtures etc.
Upstairs Bath

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Silver Waves

that is the name of granite we picked for our countertops on Saturday.  It's pretty dark but has lots of white veining running through it - giving it an overall lighter look.   Lot's of drama and contrast - but not too dark overall.



Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Flooring

We are picking a wood stain for the floor, which is exciting! it will be so nice to have them all uniform - really feel like one unified house again!  





But in the process i have learned something perhaps troubling about myself.  You guys, i am racist ... 

Monday, June 13, 2016

Bobby Brackets!

This post is actually about shelf brackets for the kitchen, but i felt compelled to name it after this mockumentary series Jon and his friend Drew (featured dancer in the Welcome to My House video) make every year in honor of the final 4 tournament. (Video below)

So for our kitchen we will have one full wall of nice open shelving.  It's a design decision we both quickly settled on, for it's ease of use AND opportunities for decorating.  We are fortunate to know an awesome woodworker, Gabe,  who will be custom making the shelves for us.  We were briefly undecided about how rustic v. industrial v. modern to go with the look and finally settled on modern.  We will have rich walnut shelves that will be about 1" thick.  SO not super chunky or bulky - more city mouse than farmhouse, if you will.

To go with that decision, we have to choose brackets to go with them.  NOW the whole time we've been planning our kitchen we were thinking of black brackets - to match the black hardware we picked for our ikea cabinets.

Friday, June 10, 2016

Countertop Fun*

* sarcasm

Let's get this out, i love a nice counter top.  I've mentioned that i'm partial to marble - i love the natural look and just the living feel of the stone.  But for a kitchen countertop, with staining and etching, it just ins't practical.  If i was the kind of person who never cooked, or never made a mess when i cooked, i would consider it.  But i am neither of those people so it's not an option.

Jon and i were pretty set on granite after i got over my marble desires.  There was one hot minute where i wanted Vermont Soapstone (because BEAUTIFUL!) but we have agreed that it will be too dark for our small and sort of dark space. We have granite in our condo kitchen and it has been great durability wise.  I can put hot pans on it, spill messy things on it and it will still wipe down to look fresh and clean. It also has a more natural look than say, ultra durable quartz which just looks too manufactured for my taste.

So we began a hunt for granite that looks like marble. I did some preliminary research online to see what kinds of granite may have that look.  I found these articles to be helpful.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Check In

Things are moving along at the house.  We had a bit of a set back with the roof - in summary, we thought we might have to move windows in two upstairs bedrooms because they were placed in a position that could potentially lead to leaks, hence the Money Pit feeling. But Jon and i were steadfast in our preference to keep them where they are.  If we had moved them they would have faced directly into our neighbors windows, where as now they are on angled walls facing the front and back of the property.  Our contractor and roofer came up with an alternative solution, with some fancy (read: expensive) custom flashing and siding, to keep the windows where they are.  Jon and i vowed to do anything necessary to keep the windows in their current position, including wiping them down every time it rains, and clearing them off in snow.  It probably won;t come to that, but that's how strongly we felt about it.

Things are also moving along inside - i hope to post some progress photos soon, so check back in the next few days for real updates.