One man's ceiling is another man's floor

The second floor is framed out! My contractor is working his tail off to make up for lost time on the foundation reinforcement.

Now, of course, I'm a nervous wreck that we've used too much of the lot size for the addition. Which my husband really enjoys discussing with me. At 4 am. When I wake up in a cold sweat and try to stave off a full-blown panic attack.

I'm such an Irish Catholic that it's ridiculous. When life hands you lemonade, ask for more lemons (and pits) in it. Sheesh.

The Way We Were

Can it be...that it was all so simple, then? Or has time rewritten every line? If we had the chance to do it all again (and by "it" I mean remodeling the kitchen) -- tell me, would we? Could we?

Remember when you didn't have as many choices? When appliances only came in white, harvest gold and avocado green? When you didn't get any kind of countertop other than laminate? When you probably didn't even get to choose the hardware that came with the cabinets? (I'm thinking that hammered black strap style that everybody's mother had with their '60s Danish-style cabinets in their kitchens. It opened the cabinet door, for God's sake. Who cared what it looked like?)

Ah, those were the days. These days -- I'm arguing online with my husband whether we should get soapstone or CaesarStone countertops. This is just too complicated!

Something's Gotta Give

Here is my REAL dream kitchen...Diane Keaton's kitchen from "Something's Gotta Give".

I never even saw the movie but I saw many layouts in decorating magazines over the past few years that paid homage to it. Apparently, it's been the most requested room ever sought by clients to be recreated by their designers.

But my husband is not a big fan of black and white kitchens. Sooo...au revoir soapstone countertop. So long black onyx cabinet knobs and cup pulls. Farewell shiny white, pillowed subway tile backsplash. We shall meet again...someday.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-choices

OK, so maybe I did finalize more elements of the renovation than just the kitchen sink.



Here's the style of our kitchen cabinet fronts.





Ours is actually a maple cabinet in a nutmeg stain with a chocolate glaze. (So it looks a little darker than this color and has a nice rubbed brownie-ness in all the corners of the multi-raise panel on the front of the cabinet.) Mmmm. Maple. Nutmeg. Chocolate glaze. Makes you just want to rip a door right off the hinges and eat it, doesn't it? I mean my God, it sounds like fudge.





Here's the granite that we've chosen for our countertops. It's called Juparana Santa Cecelia. I love it!












We chose an "antique black" finish for our kitchen island, to offset the maple cabinets, which should be kind of cool. I wish I could post a sample of it on the blog, but you'll just have to trust my artistic vision. Our kitchen designer suggested using a different color for the island top. Marc heartily agreed, so I bit my tongue and consented to his idea of a solid-surface countertop that will do better than granite with wear and tear over the years.




Here it is. It's CaesarStone and it's called Gold Abyss. And it will outlive me, hopefully.







And here's the accent light that I'm currently drooling over from Rejuvenation Lighting. Once I figure out the correct length for island pendants, I will order three of them to hang over the island. I'm still vacilating between a solid pole and a chain pendant with the same finish and shade. Any thoughts?

I was framed

The framing on our addition has begun!

I took this picture last week. My beautiful basement space is all snug as a bug underneath, and our contractor is working hard to raise up the addition. What you're looking at now is our soon-to-be first-floor family room (hooray!) on the left. If you squint really hard you can just see the flat-screen TV between those two windows on the far wall, can't you? I wish.

The remaining open space will be the larger part of our kitchen, a small mudroom and back entry. The brown tarps hide huge gaping holes that were once the exterior walls of our house and sliding doors from the dining room to the recently demised deck.

I'll post more pictures soon since they have been jammin' on the framing and actually finished framing out the entire first floor at the end of last week.

Everything but the kitchen sink

Well, actually, I have almost nothing ordered except the kitchen sink. And it took me only three, maybe four months to decide which one to get. I mean...it's a sink, for God's sakes. I'm not choosing my firstborn's name out of a baby book, for crying out loud.

But I'm a perfectionist. And a nutjob. And a cook. So I really hemmed and hawed about it. And here it is.



Sink. Say hello to the nice people. You, too, prep sink. Say hello.