Starting to look like a place where humans could live

We're making progress in the kitchen and boy does it feel good to see the pieces start to come together. Here's an update on where the kitchen is today.

Cabinets are mostly installed.

There were a few that got damaged during transport, so those are being rushed and will be installed as soon as we receive them. It's bothersome to see just the one cabinet hanging here, but its twin will be arriving soon.

The stove and hood will be installed as soon as we tile this area, which of course can't be done until the new cabinet arrives. It's so annoying how all the pieces have to go in order and when one thing is off it throws off EVERYTHING. Serenity now has been my mantra lately. 

A few of the pulls are on back order as well, so we have to wait about another 3-4 weeks for them to arrive. I chose a really streamlined brushed brass pull from Lewis Dolan. 

I hemmed and hawed about going with the brushed brass vs. sticking with the "safer" chrome or nickel. However, I absolutely love how the brass looks against our light grey cabinets, and now I'm so glad I chose this finish. I also used the same pulls on the drawers and cabinets. I've never been a fan of the little knobs you sometimes see used, so I decided to keep it consistent throughout the kitchen. I really like how they look and am happy I made this choice.

The quality of Lewis Dolan is second-to-none and I'd absolutely recommend this brand of pulls for anyone in the market. 

The big white farmhouse sink has been installed and looks absolutely beautiful. 

I knew I wanted a sink like this when I started picturing the kitchen in my mind. It fits the style of the house perfectly, and just looks gorgeous. I also like that it's nice and big. I chose a sink with a single opening rather than a divided one. Let's be honest - I rarely do anything more with dishes in the sink than give them a quick rinse before they go in the dishwasher, so I decided I'd rather have one big sink than two little ones.

And the faucet, I mean, come on - it's gorgeous!  I can't even with it. I knew I wanted a bridge faucet, but one with a more contemporary look. This Rohl model fit the bill perfectly. I chose chrome for the finish because, well, I like shiny things :) I'm not one to get all hung up about all the finishes matching. We'll have black, chrome, and brass in this kitchen, and I think it will all work together beautifully. 

The perimeter counters are honed black granite. Here's a close-up shot of those:

The texture and finish on these guys is just lovely and works so well with the grey and brass.

I wanted to do more of a statement on the island though, so we went with a super thick quartzite here:

This finish is also honed, and it's a seriously beautiful slab. It took an army to install this bad boy, but I'm so, so happy with how it turned out.

We also used the same quartzite on this little butler's pantry area. 

I think the backsplash here will be tiled. I've been toying with wallpapering it, but I'm pretty sure my wallpaper lady hates me at this point (let's just say there's been some wallpaper drama...) so I might skip that. Also, I'm not sure how functional wallpaper would be here since this is likely going to be our wine/drinks area during dinners and parties.

Also, right across from the butler's pantry is the breakfast nook, and I went with a patterned upholstery on the banquette we're installing here, so I wouldn't want the patterns to compete. 

The banquette is this one from Ballard, in their Arden custom fabric, and I can't wait to see how it looks in the kitchen:



One fun element we're adding in a few places in the kitchen are these corbels. 

There will be two that go under the upper cabinets on the butler's pantry, and then another two on a cookbook shelf we've installed on the wall above where the banquette will go.

The next thing I have to decide on for the kitchen is barstools. For the longest time I was sure I wanted the bistro style from Serena & Lily:



I think these are so cute, and I like how the wicker brings a warmth to the kitchen, which is full of hard surfaces and sharp angles. 

I also really like this style from Restoration Hardware, and it's a total bargain at <$200:


But, I hate it when barstools are uncomfortable, so maybe I want them to be upholstered, which doesn't really work with either of these styles. 

And, I do love the all black errything option from RH, which would tie nicely with the black counters and banquette:




I also have toyed with the idea of doing a fun color for the barstools, since the kitchen is so neutral. I probably won't, but how fun would these world market numbers be in the right space? Love. 



Obviously I have yet to make up my mind on this topic, but I need to decide soon. Moving day is now less than 2 weeks out (yikes!). 

We've also been making really good progress on the bathrooms, including the install of the wallpaper that has caused my wallpaper lady to swear me off forever. Pretty pictures of that coming soon!

Making Progress - the basement

Although there are a lot of areas in the house that are getting a lot of work, the basement is by far the biggest project. Since it's a large basement, our contractor characterized the work we're doing here as essentially building a house within a house. Kind of daunting when you think of it that way, but he's right - there's a kitchen/bar area, a bathroom, and several other rooms for dedicated use throughout the space, just like what you'd have if you were building a house from scratch. 

The stairs to the basement had to be re-built in order to bring them up to code, so the photo here shows our new staircase (it's really hard to take good photos due to the low light in the basement, sorry): 

It was amazing to me how quickly the guys put this staircase together. I realize they do this sort of thing every day, but it was still very impressive how quickly and perfectly it came together.

The stairs open up into a hallway, which is what you see at the bottom of the stairs (the top of the photo below, since the photo was taken looking down). 

Right across from the stairs to the right is the bathroom:

The shower has been installed, and the other plumbing is roughed-in, with fixtures to be added in another month or so. It's actually a pretty good-sized bathroom and we're going quite a bit more modern in here than the rest of the house, so I'm really excited to see it all decorated and put together. 

We've had a team of electricians working in the basement practically every day for the past couple of weeks. There is SO much electrical work to do down here. We're adding about a million recessed can lights, as well as several other fixtures and of course all the electronics needed for the TV equipment, etc.  

Between all the lighting we're adding and the clean new windows, the basement should start brightening up soon!  

Next to the bathroom is the craft room. It's basically a big box, and will be finished either in a fun color or with some sort of detail on the wall. Still deciding.

Continuing past the craft room is the bar area. 

This view is from the TV/Family area looking at what will eventually be the bar. This area has been tweaked a few times as I try to get the design just right. It's important to me that it look like a bar and not just like another kitchen in the basement. It's surprisingly hard to do when working with a full-size refrigerator and lots of cabinets! But, I'm happy with where we landed on this space and think it will look great once it starts coming together.

Here's the current design, with that window on the back wall above being the back of the bar:

I think the backsplash will be mirrored or shiny tile to give it a different look from the kitchen and the cabinets will be stained wood. 

Something like this could be cool:

We're having the bar area custom-built since I have some specific design details in mind and really want to make the most of the space we've got. Fortunately our contractor has access to some phenomenal woodworkers and the cost of having a fully custom-built bar was pretty comparable to what semi-custom cabinets would have been. The front of the bar will be about 10 feet long, so there's plenty of room for 4 barstools, and will look really modern/industrial.

The framing for the TV and fireplace unit is complete as you see in the picture below: 

The middle section where the TV and fireplace go protrudes 4 inches beyond the bookshelves, which will go on either side. This entertainment unit is being built by the same craftsman who is building the bar, which is great. The bookshelves will be stained wood and the middle section will be painted. 

The last section of the basement is this area, which is the game area, looking through to the exercise room. The saw below is basically right where the ping-pong/pool table will go. 

Next week drywalling should start in the basement and it will actually start looking like a finished space. Can't wait!

Making Progress - the upstairs

The upstairs to the house is coming right along, with lots of new walls and drywall dust everywhere. Here's a shot of the stairway leading to the upstairs: 

Not a lot of work has occurred here yet, but the walls are soon to be painted the same Revere Pewter as most of the house, the stairs will be refinished the same shade as the rest of the floors, and I've ordered a custom sisal runner to be installed on the stairs. This is basically a family space, since the stairs aren't really visible in the main living areas, so I'm not doing anything too over the top here. 

Here's a shot of the upstairs landing, soon-to-be playroom area, with a bathtub in it (temporarily): 

It's nice to see this area mostly all cleaned out and ready for some fun toys to be added.

Next, E's room has been painted the mostly lovely shade of pale pink:

It's "Ballet Slippers" from Benjamin Moore, and I just love it. I also adore the architectural detail in E's room. I think it's so beautiful. All we need to do here now is refinish the floors, and install a closet system and then we're ready for that little dumpling to move in! 

Here's a view of the hallway outside E's room (power tools and all): 

That is a new wall, with the door to E's new bathroom on the left. The doors you can just barely see on the right are the new laundry room doors, so basically that whole area was torn down and is now being rebuilt.

We're making good progress here. Here's a shot of E's bathroom. The vanity is getting installed, and the tub/shower is also in: 

Next up here is tile, then wallpaper. I'm so excited for this adorable wallpaper we're using in E's bathroom:

It's from Anthropologie, and is called "C'est Magnifique!" which is just perfect. I've also been picking up some very fun Paris-themed accessories for E's bathroom. Hope she loves it!

This is a kind of blurry shot of the laundry. It will be a small room, but it should be super functional with cabinets and hanging racks installed on the walls. I've also chosen a really pretty cobalt blue tile with white grout to dress up this utilitarian space just a little bit. 

The master bedroom is honestly looking pretty rough right now, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of it. You can kind of see some of the disarray in this shot of our bathroom below: 

The master bath, however, is shaping up nicely! The picture above shows our custom vanity that was built, due to some funky measurements we had to work with. I designed it, and am super happy with how it turned out. Of course it needs to be painted, and get counters, sinks, and hardware all installed! I'll try to get a better detail shot of the bottom and feet, which turned out really pretty.

Of course the good old Jack and Jill shower was ripped out with extreme prejudice, and now the space below is where our gorgeous new shower will go: 

I picked out a big rainfall shower head as well as another sprayer shower, so it should be a definite step up from our current situation. 

The tub (previously seen in the upstairs hallway) is going here:

I originally wanted a freestanding tub, but the space just didn't really allow for that, so I've switched to a built-in tub. We're doing some really pretty molding detail on the outside, and the surround will be a combination of black granite and glossy black paint, so I think that will do nicely.

Here's a better shot of the tub: 

It's a Kohler model, and I like how clean-lined and contemporary looking it is, while still being nice and oversized. 

The last space upstairs that's being worked on is the master closet: 

It's quite a bit bigger than this picture shows, so we have some decent real estate with which to work. In here we're installing new carpet (hence the torture-chamber floors), and a massive storage system. This closet needs to be super duper functional so it can handle an obscene amount of bags and shoes, not to mention both B's and my clothes. I'm finalizing the design of this space soon, and will hopefully have some prettier pictures to share soon!

Next, I'll show some updated pictures of the basement, where at least 50% of the time and effort has been spent over these past few weeks. 

Making Progress - the 1st floor

The house has looked like a disaster movie set for so long, that it's strange to finally start seeing it come back together. Even though many days creep by with almost imperceptible levels of change, looking at these pictures reminds me that we are actually making progress. I think it's important during the course of a major renovation such as this to periodically assess how far we've come. 

As you'll recall, here's what the kitchen looked like when we purchased the house:

Here's how it looked post-demo:

And, here's what we're working with today:

Walls, trim, and doors have all been painted (paint color: Benjamin Moore Simply White), eggshell for the walls and ceiling, semi-gloss for the doors and trim, hardwood has been repaired, though not refinished yet, doors to the storage unit have been removed, and all the electrical, plumbing, and gas lines are in place. 

Sometime this week cabinets should go in, for which I'm super duper excited. Shortly after that, the counters and barn doors will arrive. Can't wait!

I've selected a really pretty island counter slab, which is super white quartzite. It looks like marble, but you don't have to be quite as careful with it and it's not as prone to etching, scratches, etc. The stone people describe it as a combination of granite and marble. 

We're having it honed, and putting a super thick edge on it. I can't wait to see this installed on the island: 

The perimeter counters are absolute black granite, also honed and with a clean, thick edge. I'm really excited to see the two counter materials come together. 

In the powder room, the photos make it look like we've not made a ton of progress. However, the entire wall where the window is has essentially been rebuilt since we added a support beam going through it on its way from the upstairs to the basement, the wallpaper has been stripped, and the plaster walls have been skim-coated and primed. 

Next up for this room is adding some detail to the bottom half of the wall before we paint and wallpaper. I'm thinking molding of some sort, either traditional like this (but only halfway up the wall): 

or modern like this:

The new fixtures are here - in the living room - where, you know, one keeps their extra sinks and toilets. So those can be installed anytime. Fingers crossed that it's soon!

The dining room has been painted, although we're going to have another coat applied just to make sure it's as deep and dark as it can be. The paint in here is Farrow & Ball's Hague Blue and I am completely besotted with it. 

They also started this, which I've been dreaming about for at least the past year:

My Ralph Lauren constellation wallpaper looks seriously amazing in here, and once the light fixture is installed, this room is basically done - woo hoo! 

The formal living room and front parlor have both begun to be painted. After much agonizing, I went with Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter here. 

It was a little tricky to get an accurate representation of the color, so here's a picture from another source: 

We'll be using this color throughout much of the house, so I really wanted to get it right. Eventually I got so tired of staring at samples of slightly different greyish beiges that I finally just ripped the band-aid off and picked one. I feel good about the decision and think it's really going to complement the existing wood trim and new wood floors. 

They've also begun building out the structure on either side of the fireplace so our built-in shelves and rolling ladder can be installed. This is very much in progress so the new structure isn't painted yet, and the crown has been temporarily removed, but we're close to being ready to order the ladder and hardware, so that's exciting.

Also there's been some work done in the soon-to-be reading nook off the front parlor. The wallpaper has all been stripped, and it's been primed with the ceiling freshly re-painted. 

Next up in here will be building the window seat and bookshelves followed by wallpaper. I get so excited when I think about E seeing this nook for the first time. She's obsessed with butterflies, so I had to use Schumacher's Birds and Butterflies wallpaper in here:

This has long been a favorite pattern of mine and I'm so thrilled to have the chance to use a special wallpaper in what I hope will become a really special little place for E. 

The rest of the 1st floor, including the hallway, office, and TV room have all been painted now as well, so apart from replacing a few sections of crown molding and refinishing the floors, those rooms are done too. 

Then, we can work on finishing the upstairs: I'll share more pictures of what we've done so far up there in my next blog.