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I thought I knew what color to paint the kitchen. I had this kitchen (picture saved on computer before thinking to cite source but maybe BH&G?) in mind as an inspiration:
But that was back when the cabinets were to be painted white. Since then, we chose antique cream cabinets and yet I never thought to change my paint choice. I got a quart of the paint to test on the walls and did NOT like the result one bit. With cream cabinets, yellow and cream floors, and white tile, the citrus color just seemed odd.
So, off to Sherwin Williams I went... I had my Bee's Wax paint chip in hand (it is the LR, DR, and hall color plus is similar to the yellow in the floor). A lot of paint chips later, I'm mulling this...
I think the row to the right is too similar to the cabinets (though the second from the bottom could be interesting). I thought I'd like the grey (yellow and grey is so hot right now) but I think I'm leaning towards the taupe that is the second from the top on the middle row...
Thoughts?
Friday brought more tile, as well as a visit from the counter installers for a template measurement. Progress is slow but steady - tile will finish Monday, sub-floor will go in, small details will be handled next week, and floors will be installed Thursday.
Here's a view of the kitchen currently (I'm trying to take a picture at this spot every so often so I can reference changes later):
Sink/Dishwasher wall, tile almost done:
Stove/Microwave/Vent hood wall - tile will go all the way up to the ceiling:
Also - for fun... while I was out today, I found this vintage milk bottle. I'm using red as an accent color and so I thought this would be perfect as a vase for fresh flowers:
Happy Saturday!
Today brought the start of the backsplash tile. I chose a simple white subway tile and am very excited about it!
This post is brought to you by my dear friend Rachael, who sent me this fun link, knowing I'd love it (and I did so I'm sharing!). A visual quiz of decor style that made me ooh and ahh at the pictures - take it and see what you are yourself!
A Style Quiz from Stylish Home
I'm apparently "Old Money Extravagance".
While the pictures are fun, the description of your style type is simply a stream of meaningless sentences because what they do is assign a sentence to each picture you pick and string them together. Other than that, it is fun to see who else is your style. The second time I took it, I changed a few answers and got "Winsome Charm" - just for fun.
After the drywall was done, the time had finally come to start putting in the cabinets! Monday was spent putting in the upper cabinets, with Tuesday focusing on the lower ones. There is still a bit of work to be done cabinet wise but here's what we're looking at:
Standing at the back door...
We took out the soffit and raised the cabinets to the ceiling
Under the upper cabinet below there will be a shelf for our microwave. On the other side of the island will be a built in media cabinet and our couch will move across the way.
In other house news, the two doorways from the middle bedroom are all closed up. We primed those (count them - four spots total) on Sunday too. I'll need to paint the dining room back yellow, we'll paint the middle room when I finally decide on a color, and we picked out a paint color (similar to the one shown in the idea board) for the back bathroom/hallway. We also found a cabinet at Home Depot to start building our built in dressing area (the IKEA one is awesome but not exactly accessible at $300 for shipping and $100+ for gas to Atlanta).
The last of the drywall was finished on Friday and so this weekend my mom and I got a jumpstart on the painting while the kitchen was still bare. We wanted to paint the ceiling while it was still easy and relatively harmless to drip/splatter.
This took most of Sunday and huge props go out to my mom because she is the professional painter of the group. Her skills are mad.
Ceiling primed and painted, walls that will show after cabinets/tile primed. Hopefully that will make life easier down the road!
So a blog I read talked about Wordles, which is a free website where you can create these word art things. He referenced it as a teaching tool (and I might totally use that!) but in the meantime, I'm using it as a free item of decor. I made one using words that relate to Jake and me and I'm going to frame it and put it somewhere in the house.
I wanted to share because this would be such a good idea for a present for someone who is getting married, having a baby, moving to a new place.. the options are endless! And the site is super easy to use. If you click on the picture below, it will link to mine so you can check it out.
Here's a bigger version of mine:
You're welcome to steal my idea! There are tons of fonts and you can do your own color palette - mine is based on the colors in my house.
One place I love going but never think to go to is Flying Fish in Downtown Memphis. The other night we were going with my parents to see Shrek the Musical (so cute by the way) and had dinner there beforehand.
I'm not much of a fish person, but the fish lovers in my life tell me their oysters, shrimp, catfish, and fish tacos are excellent. Fresh, good sized portions, not too expensive. I stick with the sides - I love the red beans on rice, the fried okra, the green beans, and the corn.
The vibe is causal and cool, with billy basses on the wall and garage style windows that open up in warm weather (which was decidedly not last night).
A glimpse at what we got (taken with iphone, per usual so excuse the quality):
My red beans and rice -
Jake's fish tacos -
I re-stumbled upon these pictures on Elise's facebook today and it just reminded me of good times and good friends. So today, with snow on the ground and school out, I am thankful for these lovely ladies, all of who are so important in my life! Love you all!
Chan, me, and Elise - at my bridal shower in Oct. of '08
Almost all my bridesmaids! Only Colby is missing...
Rachael, Chan, me, Elise, Caroline, and Beth
Today brought the continuation of the building of the walls. Our entire house smells like this putty stuff - the "mud" from "floating out." I'm learning the lingo. Here's where we stand:
Doorways turned into walls -
(Finally) fixing the hole in the wall from the medicine cabinet:
And the kitchen as it stands now:
Our wonderful workers came today in spite of the holiday - much like last week they came in spite of the snow. I'm very impressed. Today we started the process of getting walls. A few small things were accomplished in the morning (fixed the front sink's faucet finally, framed in the hole in the wall from the old medicine cabinet) before the drywall guy came in the afternoon. Here's the walls:
He's got a day more of putting up walls and then "mudding" for two days. Thursday he should be done. Next week we get cabinets.
Also, we bought our microwave today (saved about $100!) and the schoolhouse pendant light fixture came via Amazon.com.
This is now the second week of our kitchen-less life. Rumor has it we are half-way through (minus floors and counters, which must be special ordered only after cabinets are in so they take longer). Yesterday wall board for the tile went up, the gas line was brought in for the stove (no more electric!), our old water lines for the washer/dryer were FINALLY taken out of the pantry...
The tile board here goes all the way to the ceiling because that is where the subway tile will be behind the vent hood!
Coming next week? Walls!
Well folks, this may be the last kitchen mood board for a while. This one is filled with things we've bought (fridge, faucet, vent hood) or things that look like what we've bought (tile, counters), accessories (chalk board, IKEA things), lighting, and more. As I made this, it was funny to see how far I've come in the design process. It is probably for the best that this took a while...
The first mood board:
The second:
Kitchen by kjasper1 on Polyvore.com
What is really funny about the first board is that before I ever knew we would be getting new cabinets, I picked that cabinet face out to use as an example of the color we'd paint ours. Little did I know that our new cabinets would look exactly like that.. Sort of a case of foreshadowing. Another interesting thing is that which each iteration, the colors got more subdued, probably saying something about my growth in the decor world.
Looking back, I still would have loved alternating cork, but having heard now from the flooring people themselves and someone who lived in a rental with cork tile, I am glad we're not doing it because I would be sick if I paid that much and it started peeling up.
In just a few weeks, I'll be able to see how close to reality the mood board really was...only time will tell!
Well, the demo has stopped and the building back has started... today we got insulation back in the walls, the "rough" electrical finished, some holes cut (like for the vent hood and AC vent), etc... Nothing too dramatic. Honestly the best part of what they have done was fix the overhead light - so you can actually see in there!
Here you can see the insulation, all the electrical, the (bright) light, all waiting for the walls (which come Monday):
They also put in the insulation for the doorways turned into wall - so when the drywall guy comes Monday he'll do these too!
Middle bedroom:
This part right here will eventually turn into a dressing area in our "master suite." Since we closed off this door, this mini-hallway only goes from our room (from the den). That door to the right is the bathroom and where I'm standing to take the picture is the bedroom, with the den door to my left.
For this "dressing room", I'm getting a one tower Pax wardrobe from IKEA with a frosted glass door and then doing a dressing table coming off the side, all built into the wall. Should be fun!
Two of my bffs have sectional couches... and as they say, once you go sectional, you can't go back (what, they don't say that?). Ever since lounging on Brie and Beth's respective sectionals, I've had dreams of sectionals dancing in my head.
While we have no money to spare currently and our little loveseat works just fine in the living room, the living room is underutilized and I feel that is because it is just plain uncomfortable. Jake and I can't sit together (well, comfortably that is) and when we have company over we mostly flock to the den. I'd love to see the living room used more for company, away from the tv and general living we do in the den. I also envision cat naps or reading books in the living room (neither happen now). With that in mind, I've created a mood board for the occasion:
Even with the snow yesterday, we were able to get a bit of work in. Combine with today's work and we have more progress!
Our contractor's assistant framed in the doors which will turn into walls. The middle bedroom had three doors, one to each hallway and one to the dining room, which was just really weird. So we're taking them out.
Door from dining room to middle bedroom - framed out for a wall:
Door from back hallway to middle bedroom, framed out for a wall:
Also we're in day two of three of electrical work:
He's been doing all sorts of electrical-y things like adding plugs, switches, and such. Best news? We're getting dimmers on our lights - so fab.
And while all this was going on, we camped out in the front room to stay out of the way:
We were chosen for an energy-efficiency grant through our utility company, MLGW - I wrote about it here back in the fall. We got a new HVAC unit, insulation, and they fixed our ductwork. All in all, it would have cost several thousands of dollars to pay for ourselves (maybe about 6000 we've heard?).
It has been a few months now and I've been able to see a huge difference in our bills. For our October, November, and December bills, there's been an average of $80 difference in our utility costs. With that, keep in mind that now we can actually feel our heat and have it set about 4 degrees higher so we're actually warmer too.
All in all, I am really impressed with this program through MLGW. I will say that they didn't do a great job with the installation - they made a huge mess of our pantry where the HVAC is (there are still huge chunks of wall stuck behind the unit even after I swept) and we found out after some roof issues that they didn't properly seal the vent out the roof (so our contractor had to come behind and add that in). This was all free to us but the grant contracted out to a local company so MLGW paid them the full amount, meaning they should have done a full job.
Well, they predicted it... and it came! Many times before we've been fooled and so Memphis tends to be pessimistic about snow (while inwardly optimistic and gleeful) and so when it came, we were all reliving our childhood, breaking out the sleds and the cameras, and jumping for joy over 3 inches. Over here, both Jake and I had a snow day so we celebrated in style by taking the dogs for a walk then walking to breakfast at Cafe Eclectic:
It has been beautiful but most likely short lived, as I am certain we'll have school tomorrow.. until then, getting a lot done!
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