E-Haus: Adventures in Lighting

Beware: there is a major photo overload in this post.

The problem with choosing our own lighting for E-Haus was that although doing so meant that we got to pick our own stuff, it did not give us an unlimited budget with which to make selections. The modest credit that we received helped somewhat, but since builder-grade = inexpensive, we knew that we would be investing a certain amount over that total. But where to invest it?

We decided that the best use of our extra funds would be spent in our great room, which is great in many ways, not least of which is its size. We needed our lighting to make a statement. I initially voted for chandelier, citing designs like this one:

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But, as much as I am drawn to these looks in theory, Nate made the good point that we are both not traditional enough and also not formal enough to make an elaborate light fixture "work." So we set out to look for fans that would not be dwarfed by our space and stumbled upon this one:

It's a little modern, a little industrial, and huge. It was also a big splurge for us, so we scoured big box options like Amazon, Home Depot, Menards & Lowe's for the other hundred lights we needed. And I even found my chandelier, which will be happily installed in our library/ playroom. 

Here's much of what we ended up purchasing:

A whole lot of modern/ rustic/ industrial in primarily dark oil-rubbed bronze and black finishes that help them to stand out against our light gray painted walls and place nicely with the dark metal balusters on our stairs and balcony. The single exception is the crystal flushmount for N's room, because she wanted a "sparkly light" and we felt obliged to deliver in some way. We delivered all of the lighting in a few different carloads over the course of a weekend, and five days later-- not only were our walls painted, but the lighting was installed as well. This made for a dramatic change that mostly just served to make us more antsy for occupancy and move-in day. 

Here are some of our lights in action:

(Ignore the dusty floors mid-installation. I'll get to them later!)

Now that we have light, we can stalk our house at any time of day! Hooray!

E-Haus: Kitchen Cabinets

Hello.

I love you.

You are everything.

I have an iPhone note from 2013 where Nate and I outlined all of our big dreams for a future home. Besides tall ceilings (check!) and an open floor plan (double check), I wrote out three details that we knew wouldn't be able to happen for years and years: a tuxedo kitchen, wall ovens, and a big gas cooktop. Nate and I love to cook and we love to entertain, but we were never able to do it easily in our 1950s ranch. 

Though there will be more updates to come in future months and years, I am in love with our starting point at E-Haus. So much so that I literally squealed when we walked in and besides drywall everywhere (which in and of itself feels like a massive upgrade!), we have a good start on our kitchen. 

The judgy part of my brain is all kinds of frustrated with our not-ceiling height cabinets, but the upcharge wasn't feasible at this point and one of the reasons that we chose painted white uppers was for the ease of customizing them. So some cabinet customization is for sure in our DIY future.

On the opposite side of the kitchen is our window and no upper cabinets at all because we're also building some white oak or walnut floating shelves to warm up our otherwise stark color palette in here (I love it, but light gray walls + black and white cabinets + white quartz + stainless hood and appliances = stark) and to also tie in the dark hardwood floors that will be all over our main level. 

In the meantime, I will be drooling all over this kitchen exactly as it is. 

See you later. 

I love you.

You are everything.

Tile Selections: Master Bathroom

The drywall went up so quickly that before we knew it, our kitchen cabinets were also (partially) installed, along with the interior doors and bathroom tile. It is incredible to me how professionals can complete tasks that literally took months for us to DIY at our old home in a matter of a few days. The longest-running task so far has actually been one of the physically smallest jobs, go figure.

Along with the whirlwind of these tasks came the first of a series of jobs for us: master bathroom tile. While we chose to go with builder options for the kids' bathroom and laundry room, we wanted to completely customize our own space and to do so, we needed the freedom to pick our own tile. One of the factors that sold us on our builder at the start was his openness toward letting us interfere with his work, and it's been so nice to make choices that we will actually want to live with for awhile instead of going with entirely builder-grade selections even though we don't have the budget for a fully custom home.

As always, I started with Pinterest, and these aspirational bathrooms:

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Luckily, there's a bit of a theme in my tastes. While I love all four images (and drooled over many, many more rooms as well), the first two feel more "precious" than the rest of our house plans. We have black and white all over our house, not least in our tuxedo kitchen, so it felt really natural to just go for it here. 

We bit the bullet, made a 3 hour trip to a tile shop that stocked the options we preferred so that we could avoid a building delay, and three days later our master bathroom went from drywalled with the start of a cabinet installation:

To this!

Although we debated back and forth for days about grout color, we settled on a light gray that provides higher contrast between the hex tiles (clearly there's a good haze/ bad light in this photo) but a more uniform look in the subway tile, and so far I am thrilled with the progress.

Next up: paint, lighting, black granite countertops, and mirror selection(s).