Finally, a fireplace!

Okay. Almost a fireplace.

Most people come home from the hospital with a new baby and immediately fall into a kind of new baby twilight zone, where time no longer exists in the way that it previously did, sleep shifts roles from necessity to luxury, and the definition of a successful day includes hinges on everyone surviving it mostly intact. 

When we came home from the hospital with our daughter 5.5 years ago, my husband immediately ripped out our [floral bordered, old, linoleum] kitchen floor and began tiling. Our first son's arrival home coincided with a major basement flood, and so it was only natural that our newest addition inspired yet another home project. 

We intended to finalize a fireplace plan when the house was being built, but nothing felt right. We considered a traditional fireplace and immediately dismissed it, but a huge heavy stone wall didn't feel like the right thing either. It wasn't until June that inspiration finally hit, and we've gone from a big blank wall to a painter's tape outline of the bottom part to a fully designed plan that we're excited to put into action shortly.

The big blank wall as is, and also-- three cheers for no longer being pregnant! Baby Elias finally arrived early in the morning on June 20th after a thankfully quick and smooth labor.

A drawing in progress:

Getting closer:

And set! This is obviously a little oversimplified, but all of the proportions are right and so we're bringing our mantel home this weekend and will begin construction on the larger wall shortly. First order of business will be to see how sleek an 1800s barn beam can really get... I have my doubts!

We're also using this opportunity to finish our backsplash. While we originally had a very different idea in mind, we've decided to keep our low quartz backsplash for the time being and just tile behind our range up to the hood. We almost pulled the trigger on marble tiles, but as with every traditional finish we considered in this house, we ultimately have chosen a simpler but also very cool white glass tile that will set off but not compete with our pure white quartz counters.

Our sample:

Tile is on order and ready for installation:

Here we go! In the meantime, we're getting started on some outdoors projects. Those, unlike these fun interior plans, will go on forever. Good thing we have no plans to leave this place! 

E-Haus: So Close, But So Far Away!

And here we fit our first real inevitable delay of the build process.

Though the permit process has been going smoothly and our builder has been great about scheduling changes and touch ups as indicated, Mother Nature has finally put her foot down. Though this winter was the 5th warmest ever recorded in our typically snowy area, it hasn't been a dry one. The incredible amounts of rain have made for a super muddy yard, and so the top of our driveway and sidewalk in front of our house haven't been able to be installed. So we wait.

Hopefully the delay will be short and sweet, but even if it ends up being more involved, we're still incredibly lucky to have gotten through the build process with so little setbacks. Soon enough we will be embarking upon the hundreds of projects we have yet to tackle-- the best is yet to come!

In the meantime, it's been pretty exciting to see so many details come to reality as we've watched the floors and appliances get delivered over the last few weeks. We even have a giant bag of cabinet hardware ready to go as soon as we find a few minutes to install them!

I love this view of the house. From the dark hardwood floors to the richly toned light fixtures, the french doors and the giant window, I have a feeling that these two rooms are going to see a lot of action. Though billed as a "library," the first will primarily function as a playroom for awhile, and the other will serve as a cozy space for hanging out and watching tv.

This is a small but big thing, since it's one of the details that almost got overlooked in our kitchen plan. We're so excited to have a pull out trash can and compost area!

I have a feeling that I'm going to get very used to this view. Though the pendants still need corrected (the far one, if you can't tell, is just hanging out in space and will be replaced by two of the same pendant spaced out over the peninsula) and the fireplace needs a surround, these rooms make me smile hard. I especially love the high contrast counters and cabinets on the bottom.!

We have carpet upstairs! We have a love seat that's going to make for a perfect little reading nook up here, and the view isn't half-bad, either! Bets on how long the carpet will stay white?!

Laundry room! I have since seen this room with the washer and dryer installed, and though it's by no means roomy, it easily fits two front-load units side by side and we'll be installing some upper cabinets and a countertop over them shortly.

Everett loves his room! It's just about ready for his bunk beds and a modern mural.

Like I said, I can't get enough of this view. Plus I absolutely love how our giant fan has grounded this space.

A (nearly!) finished master bathroom! I have taken daily baths for YEARS, and this will be my first opportunity to do so in a roomy tub. Unfortunately the kids have informed me that they plan on joining on the regular, despite the fact that they get their own not-quite-so-roomy tub!

The master bedroom is not large, but feels airy with the addition of a  faulted ceiling. I like a cozy sleeping space, so this is perfect for us.

Norah loves her room as well! This is the only light fixture with any bling in the whole house, but Miss Nu insisted, and so we conceded the point. The double window feature and 10 foot long closet aren't too shabby, either.

Paint, trim, carpet, hardwoods, railing, balusters are DONE-- all this view needs is some decor!

The view from our entryway. Though I initially fought hard to keep the two-story foyer that was in our first round of house plans, I'm actually so happy that I conceded this point. This space is just large enough for people to come in and deposit shoes and coats in the closet or on a hook, and feels homey besides. The extra square footage on our second floor doesn't hurt, either.

I have big plans for this little powder room. Nate is so scared, but I can't wait to give this space an extra dose of personality!

We have stone! Besides the sidewalk and a whole lot of landscaping, the only thing left to do out here is to paint our front door. I'm thinking yellow. Nate is, again, scared.

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:

source

source

source

source

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).

E-Haus Decor Plans: The Main Bathroom

With our upcoming move, we will be moving from a single bathroom to 2.5 bathrooms. Having spent my entire adult life carting toiletries to and fro from bathrooms that are shared in some way, I almost didn't know where to start in terms of making plans for each space. Furthermore, my kids have their own bathroom in this house (well, except for when we have guests until we finish our basement), so I get to figure out a designated kid space for the first time. 

We planned this bathroom to be a blank slate (read: generic) that can be decorated and redecorated easily as our kids grow up from small to tall: rectangular gray tiles laid in a brickwork pattern, a white cabinet with double sinks, slate gray granite countertops and a low-impact brushed nickel light fixture. Then, after multiple false starts, I recalled our now-homeless art from the gender neutral nursery we left behind, and used it to make a plan for adding in some personality. Apparently, even for kids, I love texture more than color.  At least I'm consistent.

1, 8, 16: Hooded towels are adorable and also practical for small people. 

          2: The above-mentioned towels will hang on three of these elephant hooks that I plan to hang across from the vanity.

         3: The light fixture we chose.

         4: Historically we have had major problems with bath mats that get kicked around and folded and lost among our laundry. A bamboo mat will add some warmth to an otherwise cool space and hopefully some durability as well. 

        5: Slate gray granite. I kind of love the lighter matte pieces in it that may camouflage the less than pristine spots that are inevitable in a kids' space.

        6: We found a similar low stool with warm wooden legs and an entirely white and gray elephant top. This will make an ideal extra surface for both a parent who bathes kids and a kid who needs a boost at the vanity. It doesn't hurt that the stool repeats the color AND animal pattern we've got going on. 

   7, 10: Two of the three pieces of our nursery art. 

   9, 14: The bamboo finish will repeat in the wastebasket and shower curtain hooks.

        11: Tile, gray floors with white cabinet.  

        12: We opted to provide all of our own lighting and mirrors throughout our home. In this space we decided to use two round mirrors with modern wooden frames in lieu of a standard frameless rectangle.

       13: A non-slip mat inside the tub is a must with small people. At least in this iteration the color would help tie in aqua balloon art.

       15: We have forever used a ruffled aqua ombre shower curtain, but now it feels like overkill. We already have a solid white curtain in a waffle texture, so it's an easy choice.

Countertops: White, Whiter, and Whitest

The one finish decision that we came into this house with was our countertops. I have forever loved white counters-- marble in particular-- and have told Nate from day one that someday, I was going to have a kitchen with them.

Unfortunately, real life intervened at some point and while I don't need everything in my life to be pristine forever, we are not in a stage of life where we could baby marble the way it needs to be, and so it would inevitably end up stained/ etched/ pitted almost immediately. I have heard that you can have it refinished every year or every few years, but that sounds a) like a pain and b) like something I am not going to have time for in the coming few decades.

So, alternative white countertops is where I started. And I almost immediately moved away from granite options, because even the lightest of those don't look anything like I've imagined. Ultimately, it seems like there are just a few alternative countertop options that might work us:

Corian Rain Cloud:

Cambria Torquay:

Caesarstone Misty Carrera:

Caesarstone Frosty Carrina:

There are lots of other options that I came across, but I am finding myself feeling pickier and pickier and too many of the others were either super speckled or too contrasty for my taste. Today, of the materials above, I'd go with one of the Caesarstone options, but also we haven't gotten it all priced out yet and I need to see samples in person. There are two hundred million decisions to make when designing a kitchen, but as countertops take up a large amount of visual space and I feel very confident about what I want, we're starting here. Now onto the cabinets.