Bathroom progress.

Bathroom progress. Slowly but surely we are making decisions. We are hoping to build the vanity out of strips of walnut that we bought at the Architectural Salvage. We ordered these vessels off of overstock.com. and these sink faucets off ebay. Currently on the hunt for a shower head and tub faucet.

The two major decisions that have yet to be made:

1. Wall tile.

2. Shower Drain.

We are waiting to hear back about some possible free tile and stone from Stone Source, which is a company we do business with at work. If that falls through, then we will probably go with regular old American Olean subway tile. We will see.

As far as the shower drain goes I am leaning toward a basic circle drain. Mostly because of cost. My worry is that it will look like a gym shower...and we don't want that. I think we are going to try and talk to our plumber (assuming he still is our plumber considering how long we are taking to start this bathroom project!) and see which he thinks is best. Again, we will see.

It's getting there.

Eames. Fire Bucket. Back Yard.

Check out the new back yard! Ok, so, it's just temporary, but it is bearable. We tore down the gross patched together "deck" and put in new stairs. We covered the sweet dirt yard with pea gravel and pavers for better grilling and less dirty puppy feet.

Sitting in the middle of the yard is our most awesome recent Craigslist find. Eames office chairs! Ok, I know there is just one in the picture, the other one is in the house! They need a little bit of repair, but are going to look so great in our upstairs office one day when it is finished.

Our other super cool Craigslist find can be seen on the right side of the pic. What is that? A planter? No....it's a "fire bucket". Yeah, I know, "those aren't allowed in the city". Especially after that super intelligent person sprayed lighter fluid into one in the South End and caught a small child on fire. How that kind of person gets to live in the South End and not me...I just don't know. Anyway...fire bucket. Supposedly if the pit is for cooking, then it is somehow ok. So you can also call this our smores pit! I am not sure yet how we will set it up or when we will use it, but I can not wait.

Oh, and can you see my flowers in the background. Aren't they pretty? Yeah, I think so too.

The As-Is Section at IKEA

A couple of weeks ago we made a trip to IKEA in the middle of the week. After going through the showroom we took a bathroom break before heading downstairs to continue through the “area where you pick up stuff you don't need”. While in the bathroom I was able to hear the announcements over the intercom system (which you can not hear out in the store). “An additional 10% off in the As-Is section every Wednesday”, was what I heard, sold! I looooovvve a bargain, and a discount off of a bargain?, I'm there. So we stopped by the As-Is section and picked up a couple of odds and ends and were overall pretty impressed with the selection.

Ok, so fast forward to this week. We decide, “what the heck, lets go back to wacky Wednesdays”. A while back our friend Betsy got a range hood for her kitchen so we figured we might find something for our kitchen. We walked in and right there in front of us was the only IKEA appliance we had been interested in....this oven. We both stood there looking one way and then the other trying to figure out if someone had already claimed this item (it was on a cart already). We each inched in a slowly and claimed item. Price? $496...over 50% off! I love the as-is section. Ok, yes, it does have a broken knob...P says that can be fixed. I hope so! If not, we have 10 days to return. We spent the remaining hour digging through things and trying to decide whether or not to buy this bathroom sink. We decided against the sink (not a big enough discount). So, we were about to walk to the checkout and the “as-is guy” rolls this sofa out onto the sales floor. It was leather, the frame needed repair, it was 50$. 50$!!! So, we stand there debating about it. Do we need another sofa, not really. So we went to the checkout. As we are standing in the checkout I really want to go back for the sofa. P said we should wait and think about it, but the look on his face read “I want that sofa really bad”. So I stepped up and ran back and snagged that sofa. All during this whole ordeal there was a man with his family that would look at each thing that we would pick up like “oh man, why didn't I see that?”. He even offered to purchase it from us....for the same price we paid. Yeah, right. Anyway, so we walked out with an oven, leather sofa, two metal tracks that will be used for something TBD and some kitchen organizers....all for 540$. Awesome. Now just pray we can fix that knob.

After checking out we went to the car and quickly realized that the oven was not going to slide into the trunk. I know, I know, why would we even consider that it would? Well this is actually the first time we haven't been able to squeeze something into the Jetta, and that includes multiple pieces of furniture. So we decide that I will drive back and get a Ziptruck while P waits with the merchandise (what a trooper). I go and pick up the truck and on the way back I get a call from P asking if there are back seats in the truck. There were...why did he ask? Because we needed to give some people a ride back to Boston. Apparently four people had come together and split up in the store, and when they came together they had four carts full of furniture. Ooops. They were German and had all just started working here and had to furnish their apartment. After our first IKEA trip in 2008 I totally understood and felt so bad for them. So they came with. We finally made it back to Boston, wished the girls good luck on assembling all of their new furniture and went home...5 hours later.

Quite. The. Adventure.

Kitchen Cabinets and Appliances

Ikea cabinets will be a general varation of these. We would like to replace the doors with a simple gray stained plywood, but have not decided if all of the doors or just some of them will be replaced. The counter tops will most likely be white Corian....but we will see.

These are the appliances we have selected right now (sorry, couldn't find a picture of the oven because it is a new model, but it is a 30" wall oven from Ikea, made by Whirlpool) The fridge is a Maytag and the dishwasher and cook top are Bosch.

These are all changing everyday so I am sure there will be a better update to come soon...

Kitchen Layouts

We have been trying to decide on a kitchen layout after deciding that what we thought we wanted may not actually be what we wanted. Our best options are below. Obviously three of them are layouts for the kitchen remaining at the back of the house, while the top one is a layout showing the kitchen at the entry. Putting the kitchen at the entry involves taking out one of the chimneys (which is fine, we may do that anyway). The three bottom layouts work around the chimney (which we can not remove because it is venting the boiler). All four schemes generally work with tall storage encasing the refrigerator along the left wall. 1, 2 and 4 have a wall oven in the tall storage, in 3 the oven is under the cook top. I think I know my favorite, but I was hoping to get some outside feedback. Let me know what you think about the general layouts!

Our first Craigslist find!

We found this little gem (Duravit Scola Washbasin) listed on Craigslist and snapped it up for our future downstairs bathroom. It was listed by some couple that somehow had ended up with an extra sink (ooops) during their home renovation and they sold it to us for about 20% of the original sale price. Score!

Another Resolution...

I never follow through with new years resolutions, ever. That being said, I of course have a couple this year that I hope to keep up with. One big one is the "working harder, designing more, etc." resolution and I think this just might help. Unfortunately they are sold out...so I am going to make my own! A couple packs of Moleskine Cahier Notebooks and voila, one sketchbook per month. I think this will really help me keep up with things/designs throughout this whole remodelling process...at least I hope. Since we are already half way through January it looks like I have some catching up to do.

Stay tuned...