Procrastinate or Decorate?

Hi guys.  I know, I know,  it's like we were still finishing up construction, we moved in while finishing up the construction, and then we fell off the face of the earth.   It kind of feels like that;). We still have no Internet so whipping up a post or a home tour on my phone with phone pics just hasn't happened.  Although I do want to give you the grand tour it is far from being finished.  I'm not talking about decorating here either.  I have honestly lost a little of my desire to decorate through all of this.  Actually contractor J keeps asking me when I'm going to which is funny to me.  I guess he is really ready to make it feel like home.  There is such a huge list of pending stuff to finish and fix that I am not feeling the urge to hang anything on the walls.  But....that being said we did hang our huge wood wall art that we made a few years back last night.  I had put it on the counter a few weeks ago just to feel it out and I guess hubs decided he was ready to hang them. So I present to you our first wall hanging excursion!

We actually have other plans for this wall. Something more interesting and functional but we may not get to that for um ever.  So for now this is it.  I've wanted to introduce some warmer wood tones in the kitchen so I think it's the perfect fit.  The white and urbane bronze cabinets along with the concrete floors and lagoon silestone countertops can be a little cold.  
 I've also been on the hunt for some wood barstools with my Craigslist money.  I am on a mission to buy as much used stuff as we can so it may be a while before we find what we need but the hunt is part of the fun right?  

Hopefully the next time I stop by to say hi here we will have far fewer pieces of blue tape all over the house and a much shorter to do list!
 
 

Heart Palpations

I'm not kidding guys.  I'm ashamed of myself.  I absolutely have deep down heart hurting pains of guilt for being so excited about a kitchen.  That's another post for another day when I'm not floating in the clouds.    I just can't wait to show you what has finally come to fruition!

Bestow my heart...We have lights!   Lots of them..Too many maybe but uh what the heck!

Did you notice anything else?  It's kinda CLEAN.  You can see the floor.  It makes such a difference!

And yes there is still work to be done and still a bit of clean up to do but folks most of the electricity is working(did I even blog about that mishap?),  and I think all of the faucets are working(I think I left out that drama too didn't I?), and the carpet will be replaced(oh I didn't tell you about that either?).  You know what I'll tell ya later, for now lets just go to a happy place.

Thanks for giving a rip and following us through the mountains and valleys'!

A Big Surprise

Hi there. Hope everyone enjoyed the long Easter holiday. We enjoyed a little road trip to see family for the first time in a while. We've felt a little tied down due to the always pending construction decisions so it was nice to step away for a couple of days. There were however some things happening while we were away! As a matter of fact hubs said "I can't believe we are leaving THIS weekend!" because he had been told this and that would happen but honestly that's always the case and I didn't want to put off seeing family once again just in case something happened at the house.   On the way back into town we decided to stop by and take a look and SURPRISE......they had finished our countertops, installed door hardware and finished our back porch railing!

It was so good to walk away feeling half decent about a couple of things.

So first up is the countertops! More specifically the island. I think I might be in love. It is huge.  I'm so glad we went with the Silestone in Lagoon for the whole space.  We had considered doing their gray expo on the perimeter to cut costs but it wouldn't have been so bright and I'm diggin it!

OK you guys know by now I only take phone pics anymore so bear with me and this horrible shot of our lovely little scratch and dent stainless apron sink.   I think I likey!!  

This is the master bath double vanity with gray expo countertops.  Hubs is still working on the whole staining of the cabinets thing so hopefully this will look more finished ASAP.  We are also still waiting on someone to come measure for the tempered shower door glass.

The kids bath got the gray expo too!

And BAAM we can finally get down to the back yard without twisting an ankle.

We went with the hog wire look for the back porch railing because well...because we like it.  We were going to do a cable rail system in the beginning but we decided not to venture there with our builder because I'm certain he has never done anything like that before.  

We love the way it turned out.  Mostly because it makes it look less like a construction site!

The electrician had also been there as well.   I don't think I have shown you guys the front porch light we bought a while back?  It's been hanging there for a bit but he didn't have the "cagey part" on there so I had never taken a pic but here she is.  I love her too....

As for the hardware I totally forgot to take a picture of the handles on the doors but here is a peek of the pocket door handles/pulls.  We felt like the standard small circle ones would be funny looking on the 8 foot doors so I found these instead.  I like that they are more substantial but simple.

So there you have it.  There were some things that hadn't happened too.  The driveway guys wanted to pour the concrete on monday(tomorrow) but the builder hasn't had the dozers out there to move the dirt and such yet so they haven't been able to finish framing it or lay the rebar. And most importantly we still don't have water or power in the house yet. Here's hoping for a promising week.

I'll leave you with a lovely big surprise that I noticed when talking to contractor J as we stood in the kitchen/dining area.

A gorgeous rainbow!  I was really taken back by this today.  I have always admired a rainbow like most of us have but there was something really special to me about seeing this reminder from God on this special Easter Sunday!

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!

Tweak 2

Wow I forgot how our kitchen use to look....now of course this is a horrible picture(dark and baby junk abounds) but it really has changed without even really "changing it" too much.

You will see what I mean down below but I put this picture here to show what our kitchen usually looks like on a day to day basis(and thankfully I know I am not alone!) We don't have as much baby stuff crowding the room these days but there of course is always stuff everywhere and there always will be. But....when it is all tidy you can see it has taken on a new life after removing that little half wall and replacing all the flooring in the space. Oh and the island! Hubby trimmed it out and painted it my at the moment favorite color from Sherwin Williams. The walls also had a slight color change from a slight green tint to Sherwin Williams relaxed Khaki which is now throughout most of the house.

This next pic shows my little "hiding place" for the stuff that seems to be around on a day to day basis. Notes, grocery lists, random easter baskets, artwork, things to fix or add batteries to. They all end up shoved in this little corner because from the living room you can't see it and that in itself is all I need to make it feel a little less chaotic. You feelin me? I bet you are!

 And here is another view...See how you can't see my junk corner from the living area?  Gotta have me a hiding space in the house we build.

So the point of this post was actually to show a few little things I tweaked in order to stage the house for pictures and showings since we are finally getting closer.

The kitchen looks absolutely fine I know but I felt like I needed to remove a few more things to make for  better pictures.  1st thing I did was remove the fridge clutter of artwork and to do lists and decided what needed to go from my junk nook.

There is nothing spectacular here but I made this 

look more like this

(with some great photography at hand of course..more on that in another post..and no they are not my photography skills;)

Just by de-junking, placing the blender in a cabinet(and I actually moved the knives to the pantry during the shoot) I think it opened up the space and will let people see the space and not the stuff.

Then there is this corner.  Since we use our coffee maker religiously twice a day I could not bear to tuck it away in a cabinet so I moved it to.

.Guess where?

See it?  She doesn't look bad there does she?

The mixer on the other hand is a nice appliance that happens to match everything and helps it look like a real functioning kitchen(which it sometimes isn't due to my lack of desire to cook these days) so I left her there in all her glory.  I did however move the silver bucket of cooking utensils to the pantry for photos as well..At the moment they are neighboring up with Mrs. Bunn(the coffeemaker).

So what do ya think?  She looks all clean and organized doesn't she...Like "move in ready" I would say!

I present the final before and after below:

(as you have probably noticed we didn't end up painting the cabinets like I had discussed in this post.

Here is the not so appealing before...

To um "we would like to make a very generous offer and move in next week"!

Have I ever mentioned I'm a dreamer?

Linking to: the fab blogs in my right sidebar and...

Between Naps on the Porch

Craftomaniac

CRAFT

Making the World Cuter

Thrifty Decor Chick

The Stories of A 2 Z

Should They Stay or Should They Go?

Oh this kitchen....It is absolutely fine right?  Newish and clean(sometimes), but when we moved in it was super duper cheapy looking.  I feel like it still is a bit "cheapy looking" but we have done a few things to make it a little less "track builder quality".  I am pretty sure I don't have a before pic anywhere so you will just have to use your imagination, but only a teeny tiny bit.

We started by:

Removing the large florescent light over the bar and replacing it with of course non other than an IKEA light fixture.  Our obsession with IKEA lighting and cabinetry started back when we lived in Houston 10 years ago and honestly before we had a house. Touring the floors of IKEA was sometimes a piece of our weekend entertainment. I digress....

We then replaced the builder grade 4 light chandelier that hung over the breakfast table

And then decided to tackle our ever so sad island that was essentially thin laminated sheets of particle board(and still are).  We trimmed it out with MDF and put a coat of the Sherwin Williams black fox that we had previously used here in our mini master redo just to give it a little character and make it look a tad more sophisticated.

As for the rest of the cabinetry we just have not decided if we should paint or not.  I like wood cabinets I really do but these are just a tad too light for us.  If  going with a wood stained cabinet I prefer something darker. 

 Like this!

(yes this is a tiny pic but you can see a bigger clearer version in the link to it in my pinterest kitchen board)

 I also have had a thing for white cabs lately and of course I can't keep my eyes off of gray.  

(Not a kitchen but you get the idea...again found in the pinterest account on the right sidebar)

So how on earth do you decide whether or not to tackle the uber huge job of painting your cabinets....especially if you don't know what color you really want?  

In comes Sherwin Williams Discover Color program...You can take any photo and easily edit it with the color of your choice to see how you like it!

So here is the kitchen in Black Fox(the gray I am in love with)

What do you think about the gray?  I actually love the way it looks.....but....I am nervous about resale issues with this color.  It would of course look much better with an gorgeous marble or glass subway tile and new countertops but what kitchen wouldn't right?  We just can't put that kinda dough into this house.

So how about a lighter look?  This area in our house it actually a bit dark so I would love to lighten it up..oh and I guess that would be another reason not to go gray;)  Out of fear of going too bright white I thought I would play with this Softer Tan color.  The name is a bit misleading but I new it was a great color when I saw it here.

I don't know though...Of course it makes the pendant light stand out but not in a good way(I don't think) Hmm.  It just looks totally different than it does it the link above.

So then...I tried moderate white because that is what all of the trim in the house is.  This is o.k. and definitely lightens the place up but I don't like the way it brings out the tile and the black appliances and since we can't replace the tile and appliances..well...I don't know what to do.

What do you think?  Would you go for the bolder approach of gray(if your into gray at all of course) and/or does the white just look all wrong with this beige tile color?  Is it worth all of the effort?