The Deets on the Kitchen

 I've shared a few of the kitchen details before but now that it's starting to be installed I thought I would share a little wrap up of sorts.

If you've been following along with the progress on the casa you have probably seen our cabinet drawings.  This is the overall plan for the cabinets!

Below is the view of the cabinets and island from above.

I've been dreaming of a white and gray kitchen for sometime now.  Honestly I'm surprised that after 3 years of dreaming of it I haven't grown tired of it but I haven't at all!  I think that's a good sign?  You can read all about the struggles I was having committing to the colors in the old house because I was afraid it would turn potential buyers off.   You know how on HGTV's house hunters people are turned off by simple things like paint color?  We had to play it safe so we just stuck with our urbane bronze island and didn't do anything else.  Turns out I'm seeing this color combo everywhere these days and every time I see it I'm still in love!

So here is the lowdown.  I'm sticking with Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze on the lower cabinets and went with High Reflectance White from SW on the uppers.  I lucked upon the white glass and stone mosaic tiles at Costco one day and bought enough for the wall behind the stove and all the way up behind the range hood.  The walls throughout the house were supposed to be a pure white.  White is so hard.  We ended up going with SW Extra white but once it was on it looked pretty gray:(  I mean it is a very light gray and we obviously like gray but it's not exactly what I was going for.  Oh well!  It's all over the house and we don't have the time or the funds to correct it.    The truth is I like the color it's just not exactly what I envisioned.  As far as we know the countertops with be Silestone's Lagoon.  Crossing our fingers that those work out but if not they will be white either way.  The appliances will be stainless represented by the lid to our dog treat bowl;) I think it's all going to pop pretty nicely with our dark brown concrete floors.

As for lighting...We have a ton of can lights but will have two pendants above the island.  We scored 5 of these 6 months ago at the pottery barn outlet for $20 buckaroos and just had to buy a light kit at Home Depot for like $16 I think.  These bad boys are $99.00 online

Wahoo!

My plan is to make the two over the island look like mercury glass and the other three will go over the dining table and we will leave them clear so we don't block our view at all.

 I've shared this double oven that I scored from a distributer that had it listed on craigslist.  It has a scratch on the side and was heavily discounted so we went for it.  I was hesitant about the black at first because I wanted all stainless but you know what it is such a pretty range that I don't care if it sticks out a little.  It's sitting on a palate her but has some pretty stainless feet to go with it!

Ok and call me crazy...I'm a little embarrassed about this one.  I was concerned that the double oven's bigger side wasn't really big enough for our large cookie sheets and turkey pans so we bought a floor model single oven and are tucking it away on the wall between our pocket doors.  I better get busy doing some major cooking and baking right?

Here is the stainless sink that was also a scratch and dent that I found on ebay.  We LOVE scratches!

 And here are the dark brown stained concrete floors that will go under all of that pretty stuff!  You can see more about those here.  

I was so anxious to see the cabinets going in. They were suppose to be done 3 or 4 weeks ago.  I've lost track of time.  I don't know I've just run out of any faith that anything will be done correctly.  It has been a roller coaster for sure.  Listening skills and integrity seem to be out the window.  Thankfully they started installing them on a day I was at work and the hubs would just send me an occasional text with a picture and assure me things were going to be ok.  We are so tired of having to say "um that's not how it was suppose to be".   There were some issues(mostly with bath cabinets) but they will be fixed.

So here is where we stood as of yesterday afternoon!

The floors are super dirty but can you picture it all?  Woohoo!

Peek in on the Master Bath Progress

In my last post about the stained concrete floors I mentioned how there are all of these things to post about but I can't find time so I am resolving to at least throw up some pictures of what's happening at our place.  Again if your on the facebook page  this is somewhat old news(but better pics!).

So.....Here she is in progress!

Le Master Bath;)

Our new stained concrete floors are REALLY dirty now.

Um...I didn't notice those to yellowish tiles before I saw this picture.  I am sure I will look at those on a daily basis and wish they weren't right next to each other.  It's a disease and I have it people:(

I'm standing in the master closet to get this wider angle.  I CAN NOT wait to get our plumbing fixtures in!

You wanna see them?

I'm not usually a sparkly kind a gal but I was drawn to a lot of chrome so I went for it.  

We did a pebble stone shower floor instead of a chevron Carrera mosaic that I had picked out because...well because they had it at at Home Depot and I didn't have time to go to the other side of town for the chevron.  I seem to only make decisions under pressure!

And that my friends is where we stand in the bathroom.  We have been told we will get the cabinets in the house on Friday, Saturday, or Tuesday?  Yep..those are the kind of answers you get when your building.  I'm so nervous to see them:/

Concrete Floor Progress

Hi there.  As you can imagine there has been a lot going on behind the scenes since my last post about our construction.  There are the smallest yet time consuming little decisions that are being made on an almost daily basis.  If I listed them out you would probably think...What's the big deal?  It's just the whole balancing life along with those decisions on tile and grout color, fans and lights, tile patterns and budgets that makes it a bit more challenging.  I've decided instead of feeling like I need a whole "post" about our progress and how we make decisions to do what we do I'm going to occasionally do a quick update with where we are with some pictures.  I already do this on my facebook page to quickly keep friends and family up to date on the progress.  I have just found it to be a bit too much to find to right up a post as things are happening.  As stressful as the process has been we do want to remember SOME of it though so this will help me preserve the memories while not feeling overwhelmed about needing to write up a blog post;)

Did you see this post about us trying to decide which direction to go with our concrete floors?

Well we decided to go with the richness of a dark brown concrete stain.  Our entryway shows just how dark it can look in some areas.

We came about this color after searching for dark brown concrete floors online.  This one actually has lines sawn into the concrete slab to make it look like wood!  How cool is that?

Source: stainandstamp.com via Jessica@ Hill Country Homebody on Pinterest

There was also this picture that helped seal the deal.  It just gave a bigger better representation of the variation in color.

                                 Source: stainandstamp.com

Not all concrete is the same and you don't really know what your going to get until you do a sample.  The concrete staining guy did this sample for us in little man's room.  I'm not sure why he did the other colors along with it?  The one on the top right is also Kemiko Black but it didn't have a wax finish like the one right under it and it was surprisingly lighter.

This is an important thing to note.  Apparently it's more expensive to do the wax finish instead of a rolled on (I can't think of the word for it) protection.  This makes since but if your contractor has concrete floors quoted for you you need to know if they had them quoted as waxed or not.  It cost us $1100 to have the darker deeper look. :(     A side note:  if you are thinking about building...the whole "it's gonna cost more" thing will happen.  ALOT!  It is sometimes because you want something better or different but sometimes it is due to mistakes or things being unclear.  

We went with the color called none other than Black by a company named Kemiko.  To us it represented the warmth that a rustic wood floor would bring into the house without having the budget for a rustic wood floor.  We went for a low sheen in hopes that it will be a little easier to keep it looking clean and we just like the look better than high gloss.  Note: I said "looking clean".

  

I think this picture of our living area is the best representation of the color on our concrete.

 

Here is how it was looking in the master bath.  You can see how the cracks are really pronounced.  I don't mind the cracks at all but the gray color around me really bothered me at first.  Well low and behold it actually wipes away! 

 I can't wait to get the floors all cleaned up and see how they really look.

Oops...I still wrote a post!  I told myself I wasn't going to take the time to do that this morning;)