La Toilette

Chris and I spent a wonderful morning poking around Brookside this morning. We don't enjoy the shops and cafes nearly enough - perhaps because a majority of our weekend mornings are spent working madly on projects around the house. It was a treat to take the day slowly and browse the farmer's market, sit outside with an iced coffee and walk through the eclectic boutiques. We ended our outing at one of my favorite places in the world - J'Adore - a French-inspired boutique with treasures for the home and garden. I always have to practice restraint in that store, but today I treated myself to something to hold onto for our half bath.



This little iron plaque is a perfect indulgence for the Francophile in me, and will be a fun detail on the door to our half bath. As I was adding it to our stash, I saw a box I hadn't opened since last Christmas, when my parents gave it to Chris and me.



So I got it out of the basement, dusted it off unpacked this:



We requested this sweet Tiffany-style pendant for over our kitchen sink, as well as this matching semi-flush light which we put in our upstairs hallway.



It replaced one of these dingy single-light fixtures. We love the warm new color, the brighter glow and the dramatic shadows it makes on the ceiling.



The old one pictured here is at the bottom of our stairs, between the living room and kitchen. We plan to upgrade it soon too, and it will most definitely not be missed.

Well, now it's time to pack our little pendant back up, as well as my new "toilette" sign and the rest of the goodies we're collecting. It's wonderful to take them out every now and then and look at the pieces, imagining how it all will come together.

We're still in waiting mode, but in the meantime another link came off our chain just yesterday . . . . . .

Playing the Space Game

We're still waiting to find out exactly how many square feet we'll have to work with in our half bathroom. We know the room will be small, but our fixtures will depend very much on the space available.

For example, if the room truly is tiny, we plan to use a small wall-mount sink. The benefit is that since no part of the sink rests on the floor, the small room feels more open and less cramped. The downside is that it's a small sink - higher risk of water splashing/overflowing out of the sink - and it offers no storage. Here's one we like:


This sink is ideal for a small space, sticking out only 10" from the wall.

With a little more space, we can upgrade to a standard pedestal sink. It would look great - very true to the classic look we love, and with a slightly larger basin there would be less risk of the splashing that we worry about with the wall-mount. The only downside - still no place to stash stuff.


This little pedestal would look great - simple and classic.

Finally, if the floorplan surprises us and is larger that we're expecting we'll spring for an actual vanity. I have a feeling I'm asking too much, but a girl can hope. Anyway, if space allows this is what we'll go for.


Isn't it pretty?

Whatever we end up with we will, of course, be thrilled. (Especially if it's the last one).

Architects Beware!

If you are an architect, or have any experience in the architectural arts, I strongly encourage you not to read this post. Since we started kitchen dreaming, I developed a liking for drawing out floorplans. The fact that I like it in no way means that I have any skill in this area. You have been warned.

So, here's how our kitchen is currently laid out.


So, here's a little virtual tour. Let's say we're walking in from the backyard (bottom right corner). The makeshift hutch will be to your right in the mudroom area, then you walk through a second doorway (part of the "useless wall") and enter the main kitchen area. The cabinets/counter make an L shape to your right and ending with the stove in front of you. To your left is the makeshift fridge/island setup. If you walk through the doorway on the left you end up in the dining room, then can take another left into our little office (currently about 8'x11'), with a large hall closet that backs up into the current kitchen (behind the "useless wall").

Now, here are plans for the future kitchen:

You may notice the following big changes:
1. Useless wall gone.
2. Island in the middle of the kitchen.
3. Is that a toilet where the closet used to be?

So, let's do our virtual tour. We'll walk in through the back door and our L-shape cabinet/counters will immediately begin to our right - no second doorway, no hutch. After 4 feet of floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinets the counter begins and makes the stretch all the way around to the new stove. To your left is a floor-to ceiling wooden cabinet panel, behind which sits the fridge. Since we've removed the old closet we've added about 15 square feet to the main kitchen area, opening space up for the center island. Now, we can take that same doorway on the left wall into the dining room, and when we walk into the den you might notice it's now 8'x8'.

The first doorway on your left in the den will open to reveal a (slightly smaller) hall closet to replace the one that the kitchen absorbed. The second doorway (this one is exciting) is a half bathroom! Surprise! When we say kitchen remodel, what we really mean is kitchen remodel/bathroom addition. It will be a very small room - under 15 square feet - but just large enough for a little pedestal sink and toilet, putting the first ever first floor bath in our old house.

Here are a few more items we hope to put in our new kitchen/half bath:


Our island will have an overhang on the left side (toward the dining room) just large enough for a few of these saddle stools.


A couple of these cheery rugs will soften our steps by the back door and the sink.


Dramatic 8" pulls will add drama to our simple, shaker cabinets.


I love hanging pot racks, but my old wall-mounted one won't fit with our old layout. A ceiling-mounted pot rack will give us a place to display pots over the new island.

The Waiting Game

Every Friday morning Chris and I wake up very excited. I attribute this to a few things:
1. It's Friday. Who isn't excited?
2. We tend to celebrate reason 1 by getting a drive-through breakfast sandwich. It's a wonderful, delicious guilty pleasure.
3. Time to tear a link off this chain.



It may seem like a strange Friday habit, but it holds tremendous significance to us. Each link on the chain is a week of savings we need to do before we remodel the kitchen. So, each link removed is one less week to wait.

While we're not exactly nearing the end of the chain yet . . . .



it's a great reminder to us that we're closer than we used to be.

When waiting gets really hard, I go down to our basement and grab these items to line up:



We recently began stashing samples of the materials that will make up our future kitchen, so that we can remind ourselves why it's worth making do for a while longer, to do the kitchen how we really want.


Espresso stained Shaker-style oak cabinet door, Kashmir Gold granite for the countertops and Hampton Carrara marble subway tiles along the backsplash.


Hampton Carrara and St. Laurent marble for a checkered floor. Notice the paint swatch, in jalapeno, for bright, cheerful walls.

Chris and I are both big planners, so even though the kitchen remodel won't begin until next summer, we pretty much have the details ironed out. Here are a few other items that have inspired our plans.


Floor inspiration - we love the look of checkered tiles set diagonally.


A farmhouse sink with a bridge faucet will help us pull off the "craftsman" look we're trying to accomplish.


We love this granite because of the grain that looks like sand, and stretches all the way from one end of the counter to the other.


A new range with all 4 burners working! (Our current stove only has 2 functional burners). We want a gas range to help it fit in in an old-looking kitchen. The stainless steel may not be so craftsman, but I guess you can't win them all!

Elephant in the Kitchen

This will be my first in a series of kitchen posts. Get ready for some serious ugliness!

Since the house was bank-owned when we bought it, we can only piece together what happened to it before we owned it based on clues and and stories we can fabricate. That said, we know that the owner prior to us only lived in the house 11 months before they were foreclosed. We have a suspicion that the owner prior to that (so up to January 2008) did a quick "flip" before they sold it. (I put flip in quotes because normally flip would imply they made improvements. In this case that's very hard to believe).

We're pretty sure that this "flip" involved the kitchen, the bathroom, finishing the basement and painting some of the rooms. I would show you a picture of the kitchen from our inspection day, post-"flip" but we seem to have lost those pictures. Consider yourselves lucky.

If I could find photos, I'm sure you'd cringe at the bright yellow walls, the peeling blue linoleum, the tacky thermafoil cabinets, the cheesy, broken blue laminate counter, etc. What you wouldn't see in the picture (but unfortunately it was still there) is the sink that was used as an ashtray, the apartment size fridge from which all the shelves were missing, the broken pipes in the ceiling and the dead mouse that was in the sink on move-in day. No joke.

Anyway, we've made some adjustments to make the kitchen sanitary and livable while we save our pennies for a total gutting. Mouse is gone, sink is thoroughly bleached, fridge is replaced, pipes are repaired (thanks again, Dad), the walls are repainted and we stripped the floor down to the roughed-up old hardwoods. Here's our current interim state.


View from the dining room. The pear green walls are a big improvement over the former Crayola yellow. We still get by with the cheesy cabinets and poorly installed counter.


We replaced the fridge this winter, due to the fact that every time we opened the door to the old one everything fell out. The island to the left of it is a temporary solution to provide additional counter space and storage for the time being.


View from the back door. The wooden cutting board to the right of the stove hides a spot where somebody set a hot pan directly on the counter. Notice the classy trash can, thanks to Realtor Mike!


Looking toward the back door. The hutch is a temporary solution to create storage in an otherwise useless corner.

So, that's our kitchen for now. We get by with it for the most part, but have really enjoyed planning for a major upgrade. More to come on that very soon . . . .

Planting Ahead

With phase 1 of our backyard complete (fence) we're anticipating phase 2 (deck) to hopefully happen next summer. To prepare for this, and to add a little more interest to our yard, we've framed off some flowerbeds. The idea is that when you walk in through the side gate, stones set into the ground (coming soon) will wind between the flowerbeds as you walk toward the deck steps at the back corner of the house.

So, we took our side yard (to the left of the house)



and dug out some flowerbeds. We tried to make a nice flowing shape to accommodate a gently winding path. All three beds are mulched, and I'm slowly getting flowers planted.



I'm planting perennials in hopes that they'll come back thick and lush next spring. So far I've planted several types of coneflowers, shasta daisies, tiger lilies, lavender, hibiscus and ornamental grass. Here are some shots of the plant starts - hopefully we'll have some beautiful afters next year!

Making a Compost Bin

Today we finished building a new compost bin for Becca's garden. She has been talking about composting for years — now she has a box to get started.



It's built to last, made of western red cedar and treated pine. I spent Sunday framing out the form and adding the side pieces from left over fence pickets. Tonight I sweated out the final touch — a hinged lid.


The box is kinda heavy, hopefully this spot works (garden corner)

Our design was inspired from a This Old House tutorial. Generally speaking, TOH has a way of making simple projects overly expensive and complicated, so I basically took dimensions from their plans (25" x 25" x 32.), and scrapped the rest. One other detail I gleaned from their instructions was to affix the pickets from the inside of the frame which hides the screws from sight and makes for a prettier outside.


Adding a hinge to the lid - it was so hot outside, I taped my glasses to my head so they would not slide off my face.

We put leftover 6' and 4' cedar pickets to use in an alternating pattern along the sides. Covering the frame took about 20 pickets total. The overall cost was probably around $40 - $50, with the hinges being the most expensive item.

I don't really understand the ins and outs of composting, but I have a hunch Becca will become a pro.