Should be Fingerprints : Polished Stainless Steel Countertops :: Red Wine : Wooden Countertops but it's not for my personal OCD

Voila! Le problème du jour:

This is already the second island countertop we've had installed as the first was the wrong size.  This one has a veggie sink in it though, so there's that.

However, we should have looked closer at the finish on that first slab, because...yeah...

I may have been inundated in Disney rhetoric last week, but Mirror, mirror on the...counter...was not exactly the look we were going for here.  We were thinking more like this:

We neglected to specifiy a brushed or satin finish in the initial specifications and so here we are with a polished stainless steel counter top.  Which, let's be frank, will be a nightmare for anyone with even the slightest hint of fingerprint OCD.  So there is troubleshooting options happening, including sandblasting the countertop while in place (is that even possible? Who knows but we aim to find out).  

Appliances have showed up andare slowly being installed, which means the house is now locked and alarmed at all times that subcontractors aren't working.  This made life interesting when Andrew "broke into" the house on our way back from the airport Sunday and set off the alarm.  Thanks for fielding our calls on a Sunday for alarm codes before the police arrived Mr. Contactor! 

The microwave drawer went in, and Lilly was quite excited that she can reach it to use it.  I told her she would be in huge trouble if she ever tried to put anything alive (like her brother) in it.  Rarely Known Fact: I have an irrational fear of live things ending up in the microwave, likely born from some kind of urban legend heard as a kid.  Makes me queasy even talking about it.

The lighting has gone in all around the house and these lights, which we were very unsure when choosing, have probably ended up being my favorite.  I'm digging the hammered look of brassy gold against the stainless steel (ugh).

The butler pantry butcher block counter is in and the backsplash tile has been started - have to be a little spunky with the tile where booze are served.  Everyone's response so far has been "wooden counters where you have wine?" Which I get, but aren't wine stains a sign that it is a house that is well loved and enjoyed?  Or at a minimum abstractly artistic in nature?  I make no sense at all, and I realize that.

Guest shower tile has been mostly completed and didn't turn out too badly really.  Mr. Tiler was excited for nothing perhaps?

Kids bath as well, although that grout seems to make a royal mess of things all around the work area.

Tile backsplash in the master bath is in progress...

...with the very blue shower waiting for grout.

The barm door hardware went in to seperate the master bath and bedroom, but now I am on the hunt for a funky door to replace this normal one with, so leads for fun door places are appreciated!

We have fans and lighting in all the rooms, which may look familiar as they are identical to our current fans.  What can we say, we like them.  And we got burnt out on making design decisions by the time we got to fans.

On the outside, the metal roof went on, giving the house a bit more of a contemporary vibe.

The balcony railings all got a coat of white paint and the balcony is now prepped and ready for gray slate flooring.

Three weeks and counting to close.  And seeing as we officially became homeless today and sold our home, it's a good thing we are on track with the new one.  Fingers crossed.

For the Love of a Kitchen

If anyone has interest in some of the detail selections, I thought I would post some over the course of this project. We have been spending months deliberating, discussing, weighing the pros and cons, sometimes arguing and throwing up our hands in surrender until we come back to discuss AGAIN on various minute details (case in point: the doorbell) that normal people would not pay attention to but when you have a marriage with two detail-oriented people... Let's just say it leads to lots of TALKING.  And expressing your FEELINGS.  And someone punch me in the throat now.

The Kitchen.

Otherwise known as Andrew's Man Cave.  Although he is getting a few of those in this house, so maybe this is more like his First Love? No pressure, but our last kitchen won a GHBA award so the bar has been set, and we want to do it right.  This will be the heart of our house, it's where we always end up hanging out, so it's got to be inviting, comfortable and fun to cook in.  Did I mention, easy to clean?  That too, as I am not the cook, I end up doing the dishes most nights.  I need cleaning to be as short a process as possible.  

Counter tops - White carrera marble for kitchen counters, stainless steel for island, butcher block for the adjacent butler pantry.

Inspiration from Houzz.com (thank you Gem for cluing me into that little black hole prior to starting this process again).  All of these kitchens are WAAAY fancier than we could imagine but it's nice to dream.  And let's be clear here: I am not very creative of my own accord but I can mimic decently when given pictures.

Cabinets - These will be stained very dark brown/espresso color (like the first picture) except the island lower cabinets which will be painted white (like the second photo).  I am succumbing to the trend of dual color cabinets.

Tile - Last time we went very colorful with the tile backsplash in the kitchen, so of course we would do a complete 180 and make the backsplash in this house all white in a variation of a diagonal pattern we found at a local restaurant that we enjoy (on the back wall waaaaay in the back at the top).  Bonus: Doing white tile is cheaper with a minimal increase for the funky layout labor.

The floor will be a gray 12"x24" tile that I don't have photos of because I am still somewhat grieving the loss of the volcanic tile.  It would be disrespectful to post pictures like that during this period of mourning.  

Appliances - This is one of things things that provokes talking about your FEELINGS a lot between Andrew and I.  He started out in love with the French door ovens made by Blue Star and wanted to have the venthood and range top to match.  And then we saw the Blue Star double French door ovens price tag and my eyeballs fell out.  

It makes Viking look like Walmart. I mean, I'm a total sucker for being able to custom color your appliances, but even my ridiculousness has boundaries. 

In addition, the Blue Star range top is quite probably the hardest thing to clean ever.  The sales guy who was showing us why chefs love it even made mention of how chefs don't care how hard it is to clean because of its amazingness in cooking as, you know, they don't have to clean it.  They have staff for that. Well THIS staff says that's the nail in the coffin for Blue Star.

We ended up going with the Thermador packages which seems like a good compromise of affordable and user-friendly.  I hope that oven makes a killer batch of cookies.  They also have a promotion going for a free dishwasher with the package. Hashtag-hitting-my-sweet-spot. 

I will do another post on our "design process" (quotes are imperative here) and how awesomely simplistic it is (spoiler: there may or may not be drawing in Excel involved).  Prepare to have your mind blown.

The Final Tile Product

As promised (and earlier than expected!)...  The tile mostly done, minus some grouting and edging finishes.

Week 16 - A splash of color in the kitchen.  And the pensinsula counter with sink!  Notice, my specific directions lying next to the sink for posterity.

Week 16 - Face up, that is where the cooking magic should happen.

Week 16 - Coffee Bar, please apply for the barista job within.

Week 16 - And while we're on the subject of bars - the wet bar, complete with sequin-esque backsplash.  Why not be a little over the top?  We're not serving bologna sandwiches here.

Week 16 - This was probably a complete pain for the Tiler, but I appreciate his sweat and hard work.

Week 16 - Attempting to harness my chi.  Glass subway tile and river rock bottom.

Week 16 - There is still white grout to be put in, but my feet tingle with glee for this surface.

The Angels are Singing

Guys.  It's here.  This week was Tile Week.  I have been staulking the tile guys more often than I care to admit.

*contented sigh*

The first of last week, the counter tops arrived.  So I won't lie, the order was right except for the edging.  We went back and forth on the edging several times, but eventually settled on a square edge.  As you can see, it is not square, it is round.  The change must have gotten lost in the order.  We decided to keep it as is, and we're hoping this means it will be less prone to chipping.

Week 15 - Kitchen Right.  Centered on the counter will be the 5-burner gas range.

Week 15 - Wet Bar, minus the beverage refrigerator.

Week 15 - Silky Smooth Bar-ness.

Week 15 - Le Buffet.  Yes, the cabinet fronts are still wrong.

Meanwhile, the showers and utility room were getting started by the tilers.  Yee haw!

Week 15 - The Guest Shower is progressing nicely.

Week 15 - Lilly's bath is mid-way through.  Sorry for the compromising angle, Sir.

Week 15 - We're short a few rectangles, bu the master bath floor is getting there.

Week 15 - The tedious job of tiling the master shower.  I think this one took the longest.

Week 15 - The Utility room is laid (hah) out and ready for grout.

A few weeks ago, I saw a photo online of a tile layout that I liked (danger, I am still ready an embarassing number of design blogs), and asked the GC to oblige me on the balcony tile.  It didn't require that he change anything about the tile we ordered, it only required A LOT more work, i.e. sawing every single 12"x12" tile in half and then laying it out in a crazy pattern.  It didn't cost any extra, but I think it breaks up all the horizontal lines on the balcony well.

Week 15 - The herringbone design begins.  This guy worked tirelessly for two days straight on this one balcony.

I will post the reveals of the final product this week.  We were gone all weekend, and came back to mostly completed tile work, and it was pretty much the best Memorial Day gift ever.  I didn't get to follow through on my dream of handing each individual tile to the kitchen-backsplasher so the randomness would be properly randomized; however, I may have left explicit, scaled, tile-by-tile instructions in my absence.  I'm glad I did, because I love the result.