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.

Picking Tile

In addition to lights, we have picked all our tile choices for the house, too.  They are, for the most part, simple and safe choices.  and we are both happy with that.  here is a little tour of all the different tiles we considered.

Upstairs Bath: This one only had a little back and forth.  Once we had moved on from our brief hope of finding the perfect mid-modern piece to serve as a vanity

 and accepted the reality of using a stock vanity

Light Choices

Thank you all so much for you feedback and suggestions on stair and entry way lighting! it was really helpful to have some thoughts on our ideas and get new ideas and suggestions too!

Jon and i spent all this weekend working on finding finishes for everything.  We looked at tile and carpet and toilets and sinks and lights and i don't even know what else.  Most importantly we settled on a lighting plan.

We decided that for light fixtures we should go the more cost conscious route, as those are really easy to change out ourselves should we ever decide to upgrade or want something different.  We want to spend more of our finishes budget now on things that are harder to change later, like tile.

That said, we have ALMOST every fixture picked out.  We are still deciding on a handful but for now, here are the lights for our house!


Master bedroom and closet - this is about 75% confident. we like the multi-light style for the closet and a small simple fixture for the bedroom.

Final decision - vanity

so, i mentioned the epic search.  i visited dozens thrift stores, scoured craigslist, krrb and other sites for hours.  I wanted to share with you some options we found, to give you an idea of the search.  of all my searching these are the best specimens i could find... each with their own flaws.

 a little small - too many drawers - it's hard to modify a piece that is built of drawers, when cabinets would be easier for the pipes and plumbing - we'd have almost no storage left.

i like the look a lot but in addition to too many drawers, it has a laminate top - not a good look, i want wood.