Kitchen! Day 1

Our kitchen actually arrived yesterday!  Everyone, dance with me!!!!  Partay time! 

The delivery guys brought the kitchen in the morning, and the carpenter came to install in the afternoon, I didn't get to the house until last night around 5, and I must say, I was totally impressed with what I found.

And of course, we had to take cheesy photos of us in the kitchen:



But the breakfast wall is pretty much installed:

What was super-exciting here is that the cabinets under the appliances all have roll-out shelves.  I love the thought that the shelves can roll out because there is nothing I can stand less than cabinets that you have to root through to find things.  This is so exciting!

I also had to tour our living room, because it was full of goodies:

Here are a few of the more exciting components:

The top picture is our range hood, and the bottom is our farmhouse sink!

I also snapped a picture of the makeshift workshop the carpenter set up in the dining room.  Pretty cool!



We did have a mini-problem though.  There is a visual break at the end of the kitchen on the side of the "breakfast wall," and a cork line between the kitchen floor and dining room floor.  The problem is that this creates a very easy to see "end" of the kitchen.  But, there was a cabinet that went beyond this line, on the opposite "window wall," which looked like we had a cabinet spilling into the dining room.  Plus, we weren't sure if it would be taking up too much room in the dining area. 

We brought up our concern with the carpenter, who offered to go with us to pick up the dining table, so that we could make a best-informed decision as to wether or not to nix the extra cabinet.



We were impressed that the table does fit nicely.  But, that little white cabinet next to the dishwasher just felt like it was "creeping in" to the dining area.  We decided to nix it, which left us with a new dilema:

We're not entirely certain what to do with the extra wall space past the dishwasher.  Of course, the side of the dishwasher will get covered, and the countertop will end at the end of the dishwasher, but now we have this little wall.  Here's what we're considering:

1.  Remove the extra tiles, and just paint.

2.  Put a glass plate on the wall to cover the wall and prevent splashes on the wall.

3.  Install a slab of granite on the wall that matches the countertops.  Hmm, this isn't my favorite choice.

4.  My new thought today:  build a mini- wall out of drywall along the side of the dishwasher.  We would then remove the tile and it would make the dining area look a little more like a room.  We would also make the wall a little higher than the countertop, creating a definite end, and protecting the other side of the wall from splashes. 

We need to decide in the next few hours what to do, because the plaster guys are coming today and tomorrow to finish up.  Oy!



Measuring for windows

This afternoon, Mr. B, Joern, and I met with Mr. H, our window installer.  We are now into our next step on the house, the windows.  First, we signed a contract with Mr. H. The terms were fair and his price was good.  We feel confident too in working with Mr. H because Mr. B works with him, and well, we hold Mr. B in highest esteem.
Afterwards, Mr. B and Mr. H got to work measuring our windows.  Although they are measured on the plans, they needed to exactly measure the window openings for the windows. 

                                                 Obviously, in deep discussion here.

And  when they finished measuring each window opening, Mr. B made notations on our walls like this:

I learned a lot today.  The picture in the middle with all the crosses is the window itself.  It has a grid pattern because the window has window grills, and the "greater than," and "less than," signs show the direction of window opening.  This is actually more like a french door, so both sides of the window open in.  HTS stands for (cough, something,) that signifies that this window will be used as a door.  With this specification, there will be no "lip," at the bottom of the window that you need to walk over, the trim will be flush with the ground.
There was also a notation that looked like this:

 In this case, Fest does not mean "Fest," as in let's have a party, this is the window that goes above the kitchen sink, and does not open.
We walked through the whole house with Mr. B and Mr. H. We had to make a few decisions on the direction of the windows opening.  We are still deciding as to whether or not we will be using window grills in the cellar as well.
Mr. H will place the order for the windows tomorrow!  The estimated time for the windows is now between 3-6 weeks.  Once the windows are in, Mr. B also discussed with Mr. H putting in a builder's door and blocking off the rest of the entry points, so that the house is secured.  Wow!
Before Mr. B left, there was one more decision to be made. Mr. B brought with him two samples of roof tiles.  One was a dark, matte gray, and the other was a shiny black.  Funny how when trying to visualize the two roof tiles, we struggled to decide which of the two colors would look better with the house, but once we saw the tiles, there was no question.

We're going with the shiny black tiles (on the left.)  They look really classy in person! 
With this final decision of the day, Mr. B called the roofer and asked him to order the tiles.  As this week starts winding down, I am so excited to see what next week will bring with it!
 

Hello bathrooms!

I finally screwed up the courage to ask Joern if I could borrow his computer for a few hours yesterday.  I had a big project that I really needed to do for the house.  But I needed photo editing software for the project, which I do not have installed on my netbook.  "But what about the project?" you ask?  I made mood boards for the bathrooms.  This was so important because we have some important decisions to make upcoming soon, like the granite choices for the vanities, and of course, paint colors.  But I also wanted to take the opportunity to pull together the choices that we have made, to see if it looks nice before anything is acutally ordered.  So without further wait, here are our bathrooms:
Children's / Guest bath (a gentle beach theme)

 I posted two different paint choices on the right and left sides, I'm not sure which one I like more.  I also need some decor for the bathroom, but that can wait.  The flooring choice is not actually wood, we will use "wood look," tile for the flooring.  We also have a trim for the top of the beadboard.  And we will use a white subway tile for the shower.  I am also not quite certain as to which granite we'll chose yet. I think we'll have to go to the bathroom showroom for the granite or marble, tops.

Master Bath

 I'm pretty convinced the granite vanity will be a tough choice, as the floors are such a light beige.  My gut says a dark brown, but I don't think dark brown would go so well with the espresso wood.  I'm still not entirely convinced with the shower floor and accent tile, it will be a travertine mosaic, but I'm not sure which one is really the best choice.  Paint choices are also not so easy.  I would love to add a punch of color, and I feel like a dusty purple would be great, but then I would need to use a light granite and I would also have to convice Joern to be happy with a purple bathroom.  I am just afraid that beige paint will make the bathroom a big, beige cave. And yes, I am considering oil rubbed bronze light fixtures, because we have ORB accessories (magazine rack, towel bar, etc,) so I need the light fixtures to pull together the two metal finishes in the bathroom.

Powder Room (Istanbul theme)

In the powder room, most of the decisions are all set.  I just need to decide how dark I want the gray paint.  On the one hand, the room is small and dark paint would make the room oppressive, but there is a floor length window (which needs a good curtain,) and there will be a beveled white subway tile halfway up the walls.  I also need to find a good frame for the watercolor I picked up in Istanbul.

So, that's what we have right now.  The fourth bath is in the cellar, and I'm not so worred about decorating that right now.  I am just so very happy to have this projected completed!