It’s been an uneventful few weeks, in terms of visible changes. But, we’ve been doing lots of planning, obtaining quotes and information, and ordering!
On the kitchen front – after 4, yes 4 tries, we finally have permanent countertops! At first two of the slabs completely did not match, so they had to recut from a new slab. Then, the new piece was still too dark to match the original. Finally, this last try they got it right and we have countertops. We love them – they’re the leather finish from silestone so they are a very matte finish which to me looks quite modern. We also selected, purchased, and installed the handles for the cabinets! We ended up going with theKlippig handles from IKEA – we liked these because they are really sleek and modern, and they screw into the back of the cabinet fronts so we didn’t disturb the look of the wood. Plus, if we ever want to take them off and try different handles in the future, it will be a really easy change.
I was so excited to fill these few cabinets with our pretty new dishes that were packed away for over a year!
We have our plumbing being hooked up in the kitchen on Monday, which is quite exciting. We’ll have a functioning dishwasher, sink, faucet, and garbage disposal! We have to wait until the floors are in to install the fridge and range, but we’re getting close! Mike is also working on installing the vent hood, which is turning out to be quite the project. There are pieces of it laying all over the kitchen counters right now.
We are trying to decide on which backsplash tile to use. We have narrowed it down to the Savoy line from Ann Sacks (it’s their “affordable” line of tile and it’s actually pretty affordable!) We will be doing the stacked brick ceramic tile from that line – and now we just have to narrow down the color to choose! So please help, comment on which is your favorite! The wallpaper pictured is something we might use somewhere in the kitchen, we have yet to decide that for sure…
We also finally ordered our flooring – they are a mineral black birch hardwood and we love them. They are sitting in our living room area right now acclimating and we’re currently in the process of trying to find an installer. Anyone know any good ones?
We’ve also ordered the tile for the concrete wall in our sunken dining room – it is a natural stone wall ledging made by a company called Thorntree. We ordered the off white color which is called beau rivage. We ordered from Travis Tile here in Austin and highly recommend them – they have been great to work with! We will have that installed prior to the flooring going in. Right now, as you see from the photos, that wall is just a rough, ugly concrete wall covered in carpet glue. Yuck. Can’t wait to see our stacked stone wall!
You’ll have to use your imagination to picture the tile below covering the entire wall.
Lastly, we’ve received all the new doors we ordered for the house. They are currently sitting in the back bedroom but we hope to get those in after the floors are all set. Mike also installed the new back lower exterior door last weekend – the old one was totally drafty and jerry-rigged to fit the very tall opening. We even found random pieces of paper the previous owners stuffed in the cracks to use as insulation when we pulled out the old door. Talk about shortcuts!
