Options Part I

The floors did get installed in the hallway, butler's pantry and family room which is a huge improvement.  When everything is finished they'll come back to sand and polyurethane them.  

Family room

First floor bath looking into butler's pantry

The cabinets are still going up.  They kind of took a break last week.  The installers seem to be very thorough which is good and bad.  I only say bad because it's taking so freakin' long to put them up.    

I've had to make some pretty tough decisions in the past week.  Namely about the countertops.  I really really love the look of marble.  Who wouldn't want one of these kitchens?

via decorpad.com

via decorpad.com

via decorpad.com

There are about a gazillion pictures and blog posts about marble countertops because they are so timeless.  But...they are also completely impractical for someone like me who has borderline OCD.  All my hair would fall out worrying about stains and etching.  But oh is it beautiful.  

I also love Quartz..

via kitchenbuilding.com

They even have some that mimic the look of marble

Ceasarstone Misty Carrara

But...I've heard that you can't take things hot out of the oven and set them down on quartz.  I guess it's not the end of the world.

We also looked into Soapstone 

via anantmarmo.com

via soapstonecounters.com

Such a classic look.  Our neighbors have soapstone and they love it.  But...I know myself.  I'm fairly lazy at home and I just can't see myself oiling these every six months or sanding them if heaven forbid they get a scratch.  I'm twitching even thinking about it.

The only biggie left that I haven't mentioned is granite.  We've had granite countertops before and were pretty happy with them.  My only beef with them is that our particular granite had a lot of mica and quartz bits that chipped.  I lived through the tragedy though and lost very little hair since our installer was able to "fix" these areas.  Other than that, no problems and no maintenance.  Yes.  

So after giving it a lot of thought, we decided to stick with granite.  I really wanted to get a white colored granite which apparantly is an oxymoron.  I've seen some whiteish granites online but the local retailers in my area didn't have a lot of choices.  Apparantly you have to live in Utah to get the goods.  Don't ask me why.  Anyway, here are the options:  

Option one is Delicatus White

via stonecontact.com

via houzz.com

This is probably one of my favorite kitchens.  The granite looks so dreamy.  There is a lot of variation in this stone.  Some slabs end up looking really peachy yellowy while others are more gray, black and white.

Delicatus White via marvamarble.com

 Option two is Ambrosia White.

Ambrosia White via marvamarble.com

I really love the movement of this granite and it has some nice grey veining with garnet spots. 

Option three is Spring White

Spring White via marvamarble.com

This granite is actually similar to the Delicatus White.  It has white, black, grey, and taupe with some garnet spots. 

So, opinions?  We had the template made today for the granite.  I actually already decided on one, but I'll reveal what it is once it's in.  I hope I made the right decision.  All three are really beautiful.  It was tough to choose but I'm really excited about some of the progress that's taking place.  Yay progress!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a great day.  Next week I should have some house updates.  Until then...

Let There Be Light

Things are really starting to pick up now. The windows and new door are in and they started to put some of the cabinets in the room to configure where they will be going.  It's really starting to resemble a kitchen now.  

I guess I'd better start thinking about colors.  The cabinets are going all the way to the ceiling so the majority of the room will be white.  Obviously there are a lot of windows and thus a lot of natural light so I'm thinking that the walls are going to have to be somewhat dark.  We haven't picked out countertops or backsplash yet so that will skew our decision of course.  You would think that with how long this has taken that I would've  had this all figured out already, but I don't.  I've almost figured out which lights are going in the room.  These are the choices:

 Or

I've only seen the satin nickel island lights in person.  I'm waiting for the store to bring in the glass version before I decide.  I think they're a good look for the style and age of our house.  Originally I wanted to do lanterns but my husband gave it a big thumbs down.  For some reason he likes them for our hallway though.  No rhyme or reason with him.  Must be an XY thing.

Who Knew?

Well I finished my oil painting class and here's my most recent painting.

I have to pat myself on the back just a little bit here so bear with me.  I took this class after my friend begged me.  I had taken a pottery class last year and it was an epic fail.  It definitely was not the Demi Moore in Ghost experience that I was hoping for.  The clay was not soft and squishy like I imagined and it was really a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.  I'd given up on having any artistic ability, especially after remembering the abysmal things I "created" in high school art class.  So I reluctantly signed up for the oil painting class.  The teacher's style was very free.  Translation, she gave no instruction whatsoever.  Normally I am a very think inside the box only type of person.  I'm  right-brained and am somewhat rigid in my thinking.  Things have to be just so which really doesn't lend itself to letting the creative juices flow.  Normally I would run the other way in this type of class.  No instructions!  Well what do I do?  Cannot compute, cannot compute (steam coming out of my ears).  I think since I've gone through so much in the past few months that this freedom was actually welcome.  I didn't have to think.  I really didn't care if I didn't know what I was doing.  I was just going to enjoy it no matter what.  And then it happened.  I painted this from a picture in a magazine.  Is it perfect?  No.  But I'm pretty damn proud of the way it turned out. 

 So now my "masterpiece" is providing the pop of color needed for our stark carriage house bathroom.  I don't know if it will stay here but for now it's great.  Who knew?

We Have A Floor!!

As I suspected, the floors did not go in at the end of October.  Luckily that was only delayed about a week.  

They actually hammered each piece of wood in by hand.  No pneumatic gun.  Why you ask?  Gluttons for punishment?  Nah.  They like to do things old school because they feel that using the pneumatic gun results in some boards being tighter or looser than others.  Granted it goes much faster with automatic tools but they feel better about it and we couldn't be happier.  Forget that the floor is gorgeous...even though it still has to be sanded and polyurethaned.  It's a floor.  It represents one more step in the direction of us getting out of the carriage house and into our home.  Our spacious home where I'll have a kitchen and more than 300 sq ft to move around in.  

They're coming back to finish up the family room and hallway this week which already looks better now that the old wood has been removed.  

We would have liked to restore the old floors, but even the wood installer agreed that they were beyond repair.  So new floors it is.  

We should be getting the windows and new back door installed this week.  Another thing that will make a huge impact on the way the room looks.  And then, cabinets.  I may just pee myself I'm so excited.  

The Carriage House Bathroom Reveal...At Long Last

I won't lie.  There are still a few touch-ups, but nothing that you can tell from the pictures.  It's just me being super anal about things that probably no one else would notice.  Maybe my mother did rub off on me.  Hmm.  Anyway, here it is (drum roll please)...

You might be thinking that it looks a tad stark.  It does.  Originally I was going to paint it BM Woodlawn Blue which is what I painted the main room.  But, different light equals different look, and in the bathroom that color looked like a pastel Eastery color.  It also made the Travertine look pink.  No bueno.  I couldn't decide on a color and we had to move in so I just went with good old white.  We were going to use the original cast iron tub but it had a crack so we bought a new one.  We added (new plumbing/electrical/plaster) bead board, new vanity, toilet, fixtures, light and voila.  I would have liked to have switched the vanity to sit on the wall across from the toilet but there wasn't a lot of room and it would have cost a lot more to move the plumbing around.  We bought the little white cabinet off of Craigslist.  It's a little cramped there but we needed storage so it's functional.  It still needs a pop of color other than the shower curtain.  I'm taking an oil painting class right now and am working on something that may (or may not) work.  Either way it's probably going up just so that I don't have to look at a blank white wall.  

Just in case you forgot what it looked like before...enjoy!

Bad Blogger, Bad!

I know I haven't posted any updates of the house in a while but we've been so busy just trying to get the carriage house room up and ready for us to live in that there just hasn't been any time.  As it was, we were living with our neighbor for two weeks since we had to be out of our old house and the carriage house room took a wee bit longer to finish up than we were anticipating.  You know how things always take twice as long as you think they are going to?  Well for us it's ten times longer.  Go figure.  The delays started with the plasterer.  It took him 4 days instead of the 2 we thought it would take.  Apparantly it was quite humid and it wasn't drying as fast.  Then my husband and a friend put the tile in the bathroom.  Let's just say they were a little out of practice and it took a few days.  My husband also sanded the floor...kind of.  He really needed a belt sander but made due with what he had.  Needless to say it didn't turn out too good, but it's clean and sealed.  When we finish the house and I'm looking for something else to do (and I have some extra cash) I'm going to revisit this room and really fix it up.  For now we just need a clean place to stay.  We ended up putting down some really cheap carpet tiles that I found online.  Not completely stylish, but it looks a hell of a lot better than it did.  After two weeks at our neighbor's house I was ready to pull my hair out.  They're amazing people, but you never feel comfortable at someone else's house, you know?   So the carriage house is livable now.  We've got our Ikea daybed that folds out into a king bed, two nightstands that I bought at a consignment store that will eventually be painted and go in my daughter's room, an antique that my husband made into a tv cabinet (yes we have tv/cable/internet...heaven!), a mini fridge, a baker's rack that serves as our kitchen/pantry with a microwave, and a fold out table where we eat our meals.  The room is tiny, but I'm getting used to it.  We're still tweaking the bathroom a bit but once it's done I'll show some before and afters.  Keep in mind, this is not high style we're talking about, but when you see the before's you'll be amazed.  I know I was.

Anyway, now for house updates.  Here's some pictures of where we are now in the new kitchen.

Where the plywood remains is where the windows will eventually be.  

This is the left wall looking into the kitchen.  They haven't finished with the drywall yet so they haven't cut out the window openings.

Looking from the kitchen into the new family room chock full of our belongings.

Hallway leading away from the kitchen and family room.  First door on the right will be a full bathroom.  Second door is the butler's pantry.

New entry from dining room into kitchen.

So there has been some progress.  The electrical, plumbing, and insulation are done in the kitchen.  Drywall is almost done and then the kitchen, family room, hallway and butler's pantry get new wood floors.  Supposedly  the new floors are going in at the end of this month.  Supposedly.  I think the cabinets go up after that.  The cabinets and appliances have been sitting in the house for ages so it will be nice to have a little walking room:)