Sneak Peak

There is a LOT going on this week!

Here are a few pictures to show you what's been happening:

And this is the bathroom at our CURRENT house.  More details later...

Bathroom tile

We spent about 3 hours at Floor & Decor yesterday selecting the tile for all of our bathrooms.  I'm so glad that's done now!  It was a decision I've been dwelling over for quite awhile and anxious to actually decide and move past it.  Thank goodness Ann is patient and willing to work with us to price out and see if our "dream" master bathroom was possible, and then sit and wait while we decide if it is worth it.


I'll start with the easy bathrooms (which is where we started yesterday).


Upstairs Guest Bath:
I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted in the upstairs bathroom.  You can see the vanity we chose here.  I knew I wanted some dark slate floor and white subway tile (if you know our first house well, you might recall that that is the same as we have in our bathroom.  And I really like the look).  Here are a few inspiration pictures:

So this is what we picked out.... 

Black slate 12x12 tiles on the floor:

(ignore the accent tiles)

With traditional subway tile alternating with 6x6 matching white porcelain tile.  We went with the alternating pattern to give it a little more visual interest.  

Traditional subway tile (ignore the accent pieces)

Alternating with these 6x6 pieces.

I think the black slate will look good with the black granite vanity top.  And I think the bright white of the subway tile will contrast nicely.  Just in case you're curious, I'm kind of thinking about going with this shower curtain from West Elm:

I think the yellow stripes would look good with the black and white of the bathroom.  And a little school-spirited I guess :)

Ok, moving downstairs

Downstairs Guest Bath:

It also wasn't very hard to decide what we wanted down there.  We decided to go with travertine on the floor and shower walls.  You can see our vanity here (it's the first one).  And the bathroom will probably end up looking sort of like this:

(that toilet being open in the pic really bugs me, but there's nothing I can do about it...)

The main difference is that there won't be tile around the tub like in this picture.

We looked at porcelain tile that was similar to travertine, but we found travertine for a great price that we liked, so we went with that instead.  And we're kind of stone snobs, unfortunately.  Luckily for us though, we didn't have to compromise (in this bathroom at least)!

The tile we picked out for the downstairs bathroom is the one in the middle.  It is Tuscan Walnut travertine tiles.

I would love a frilly shower curtain like this one from Anthropologie:

However, I can assure you we won't be getting that one.  1) Because it's from Anthropologie and is a bit $$$, and 2) Because I can guarantee you Kyle won't be a fan.  Bummer.

Moving on to the bathroom that by far took the most amount of time...

Master Bathroom:

I'll start with a few inspirational pictures that we started with, to remember the decision journey we've been on.

First, we really wanted a travertine master bathroom.  (Yes, we really like travertine).  This is one picture that inspired us:

And then I fell in love with Carrera marble bathrooms that had a feeling like this one:

Kyle didn't really care between the two.  But once I showed him some pictures like this one:

And asked him how he felt about subway marble tile in the shower, he was sold.  On having natural stone subway tile in the shower.  So our dream bathroom was designed in my mind.  It would have 12x12 carrara marble tiles on the floor, carrara marble subway tiles in the shower, and small carrara marble tiles surrounding the tub.

The only problem: our master bathroom requires a LOT of tile.  The shower walls themselves need 125 sq ft. of tile.  So we priced it out.  And it was quite pricey.  So then we decided we should look at other options and then decide if the marble was worth it.  

So back to the travertine we went.  And we saw these guys:

Travertine subway tile.  And I thought, well that would give us the subway tile look in the shower.

So I started envisioning this instead:

(minus the crazy looking vanity.  that's definitely not our style).

So we priced out a similar scheme using travertine instead of marble.  Travertine subway tiles on the shower wall, 12x12 tiles on the floor, 1x1 tiles wrapping around the tub, and 2x2 tiles on the shower floor.  The price was about $1500 less than the marble.  And around our budget.  

So we stood around and went back and forth about whether it would be worth it.  Kyle was indifferent between carrara marble and travertine.  I knew I loved the carrara marble, but I knew that we really needed to stay on budget.  There are a few other things we are hoping to get at the end of this, and if we want them, then we need to not blow through the budget now.  So we decided to go with the travertine.

Our final picks included:

Karina Wavy 12x12 tiles for the floor.  These are the ones on the right side of this picture this time.  Notice that one random dark tile - I'm going to do my best to pull out the dark tiles I don't like before the tile man does his job.  I'd rather not have them in our bathroom (yes, I'm picky).

Matching subway tile for the shower walls.

2x2 tiles for the shower floor (sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy).

And 1x1 tiles that will wrap around the tub (ignore the accent tiles).

Even though we didn't go with my dream bathroom, I really do like the travertine and am looking forward to it.  And I don't doubt for one second that we made the right decision.   

But since I really do love the look of carrara marble, I would like to include it somewhere in our house (in a smaller quantity, so that we can afford it).  So I'm thinking something like this in the kitchen, for the backsplash:

I think it would look great with our dream kitchen.  

Insulation and Brick Work

The new house is almost free of inspections until everything is completed! (Thank goodness - they really slow things down).  We just have one more inspection to pass before everything gets to move forward - the insulation inspection.  Insulation was completed yesterday and the inspection is scheduled for Monday.  After that, drywall will begin!

Here are some pictures of the insulated house.  I know, all these pictures are starting to look the same.  But pretty soon it'll all begin to look like a house instead of a construction zone.  I hope.

(Kitchen/Dining area)

(Upstairs Guest Bedroom)

(Master bath)

(Downstairs guest bedroom)

(Downstairs Den)

And the other big thing that has been completed is the exterior brick work.  From the street it actually looks like a house!  I thought it'd be fun to show a Before and Current picture so you can see the difference:

BEFORE:

CURRENT:

Our poor front yard has really taken a beating.  We'll add landscaping to the list of things we eventually want to do.  But considering that we never actually made it to landscaping our current house, I'm not sure how long it will take for us to landscape the new house.  Hopefully quicker :)  

We're headed out in a bit to pick out our tile, so I'll try to get some good pictures and post about our plans later on.  Not sure when that will happen since we'll be studying allllll afternoon (my test is less than a month away!)  But I'll try to find the time.

Consumer Reports is our best friend....

After a ton of research (including many hours on Consumer Reports, and a lot of time spent at different stores looking at the different appliances), we've made our final picks for all the kitchen appliances.

Here's the rundown:

Fridge:  Samsung Stainless Steel 26.0 cu. ft. French-Door Bottom Freezer (RF266AE)

Range:  Kenmore Stainless Steel 30 in. Double Gas Freestanding Oven (Model 78013)

Dishwasher:  Kenmore Stainless Steel 24" Built-in Dishwasher with Ultra Wash System (Model 1321)

Range Hood: Kenmore Stainless Steel 30" Italian Design Chimney Range Hood (Model 50303)

Microwave: Frigidaire Professional Series Stainless 30" 2.0 cu. ft. Built-in Microwave (FPMO209K)

It'll be awhile before they are actually delivered and installed (one of the last things that's done in the house), but it was good to go ahead and get those decisions locked in.

Exterior Doors!

I'm really bad at thinking of titles for these blog posts...  I have a topic in mind, and then realize that putting that as the title of a blog post is probably the most boring and mundane title ever.  So... sorry if the titles just aren't very intriguing.... they probably won't get any better :)

Not a lot of progress was made this week except that we passed a lot of important inspections (which really is good progress).  According to Arthur we have passed the following inspections: Structural footing, Low Voltage rough, Electrical rough, Plumbing rough, and HVAC rough.  Our Structural inspection is scheduled for Monday and after that work will pick up.

The plan for next week is insulation, drywall, brick repair and exterior paint.  It's hard to believe that next week the drywall is going up and it will actually start feel like a house.

Nevertheless, a few things have happened in this past week, mainly the installation of our exterior doors:

Front Door - it will eventually be painted yellow

Back door that goes into the garage

Back door the leads from the hallway in between the downstairs bedrooms to the backyard. (sorry the picture is slightly crooked).

And the fireplace itself was installed:

Our plan for the fireplace includes tiling around the sides and above the fireplace, with a simple mantel where that block of wood is.  We'll hang some kind of artwork above the mantle (hopefully).

House #1 is still on the market... we're getting traffic through the house, so that's good.  It's hard just not knowing what will happen with it - when it will sell, how much it will sell for, etc.  But we're just doing our best to keep it in great shape and trusting that the right person will come along at the right time.  We know how great our house is and how much we have loved it, and we know someone else will see that.  Just don't know when.

But this weekend we aren't worrying about either house (or doing our best not to) and are out of town visiting our much-missed doggy, Roland:

He is EXHAUSTED from the weeks he has spent at my parents' house playing with their dog, Lonny.  Whenever he comes back home with us (hopefully soon!), he will probably need to recover from all the excitement of having another dog as a constant companion.  We picked him up on our way down to Kyle's parents' house and I think he is going through withdrawal and doggy depression from being taken away from Lonny.  I'm sure he'll be happy tomorrow when he is reunited with Lonny, although he'll probably be thinking "You're leaving me again?"  Hopefully not for long, Roland.

Interior Paint Colors

It took a LOT of deliberation, but we've finally decided on the interior paint colors:

Left to Right: Benjamin Moore Decorator's White, Restoration Hardware (RH) Atmosphere Blue, RH Gravel and RH Silver Sage

I was trying to get shots that might show how they really look (it's really hard to get them to show up on the camera).  Here are pictures from the Restoration Hardware website:

Atmosphere Blue:  A light blue-gray color.  This will go in all the living areas upstairs, upstairs bathroom, and stairwell

Silver Sage: A light green (with a bit of gray).  This one is the hardest to see from the pictures.  It will go in the upstairs guest bedroom, downstairs guest bedroom, downstairs bath, and laundry room

Gravel: A medium-toned gray.  These pictures make it lighter than it is I think.  It'll go in the Master bedroom, downstairs den area, and office

The Benjamin Moore Decorators White will be our trim color throughout the house.

Bathtubs and fireplace

Just a quick post to note a few other things that have been done at the house...

The guest bathtubs are installed now.  They even have water in them! (Apparently you have to fill them up with water to pass the inspection).

Upstairs guest bath

Downstairs guest bath (sorry, it's hard to get a good angle there)

Fireplace is framed in:

After much discussion, we've decided to do lower built in cabinets to the right of the fireplace.  Our TV will sit on top of those cabinets.  We really didn't want to have to put the TV above the fireplace, and I think we have a good plan.