So we’re trying to pick a color for Kate’s room.  It’s not as easy as I expected (and hoped) it would be.  We’ve tried every green and moved on.  We’re now onto pinks.  Anyone who knows me knows that a pink girl’s room isn’t something I automatically gravitate towards (run screaming from would be more like it).  And no matter how pink her room is I’m not getting a chandelier (sorry Mom!).  But we’re stuck between two colors.  The first one is really pink.  Almost bubble gum.  It’s a nice color but it’s a small room and we worry it may be overwhelming once it’s on all of the walls.  The second one is a very pale pink.  I worry that it’s not pink enough.  I want it to be contrasting with the white trim but just enough.  These two colors are right on top of each other in the color swatch palate from Sherwin-Williams so without making a custom color there is no in between.  The color I was looking to emulate was the one by Restoration Hardware, which is horribly over priced.  What are your thoughts?  I promise this won’t be like the kitchen faucet poll.  Promise.

Here is the pink at Restoration Hardware -

And here are the two colors we have.  I realize they look slightly different in every photo and to every person because of lighting and color calibration on your monitor.  One thing I can tell you to help judge is that the brown that’s currently in the room is a really dark tan with a bit of a green tint.

And the fabric between the these two painted areas is what the bedding is being made with.  The green fabric will be the bumper and the crib skirt is white with the pink ribbon trim.

Here is the lighter of the two pinks against our trim since that’s my biggest concern with the light color.  Does it look pink enough or just a different shade of white?  The darker pink definitely contrasts with the trim, I just worry Kate will think she lives in Barbie’s room.  The two colors below are the same color. 

We’ve moved in!  We’ve filled every kitchen cabinet and cleaned the madness off our dining room table.  We even removed all the storage behind the table, we haven’t seen the back wall of the dining room in over a year!  It looks AWESOME!  We hope to put a buffet on the back wall at some point since our light and table are off center (can you believe this room is supposed to be a family room?!) and we could certainly use the storage space but for now the emptiness looks so great, especially compared to the boxes of junk and extra furniture that doesn’t belong in a home with children.  Also, although everyone wished us the glory of eternally clean and empty countertops it just isn’t practical.  The microwave, coffee station, toaster and wine rack have no other home.  Everything else you see was for dinner and was quickly cleaned and stored.  I’m so in love with my kitchen! 

So how did we break it in?  We had my family over – mom, dad, sister and niece – and we served an awesome pot roast with all the fixings.  The recipe is ridiculously easy and so delicious.  You can find it here.  We actually got a fresh cut of roast from the Fresh Market (and without grossing you out I’ll say it was as fresh as physically possible) and it made for an amazing meal.  We’d love to do this more often and all we ask is that you bring dessert!  Pregnant ladies are suckers for dessert! 

The fam brought an awesome ice cream cake from Publix.  And of course since Noah is OBSESSED with fire we lit a candle and let him blow it out.  It says “Happy Kitchen” in case you can’t make it out.

I have a gorgeous house AND internet!  Woohoo!  Who could ask for more?  The house is *almost* done!  My contractor managed to redeem himself slightly and has come through with an almost complete addition and kitchen in two days.  The only things left are painting and replacing our kitchen window, all which should be done next week.  But in the meantime we can cook, clean, wash dishes and work (being without a computer was like being without air – ok,  a little dramatic).  I am beyond thrilled!  Now we just need to put it all together and put away the dishes that are living in the guest room half of the office.  I keep telling myself one drawer at a time. 

Our next project is Kate’s room.  With 80 days left until my due date (which I doubt she’ll make it to) we need to get going! 

In the meantime here are the latest photos of the kitchen and the office.  They struggled so much with our hood that it’s covered in fingerprints.  Anyone know how to get prints off of stainless?  The popcorn goes up this afternoon.

And here’s the office.  We’re used to a 10×10 room so our stuff only takes up a 1/4 of the space in our 18×24 addition.  I’m sure we’ll fill it up in no time.  On the other side of the office we’re planning a pull out couch/day bed/futon, coffee table and tv/entertainment system.  The rest of the house will be obsolete before you know it! 

Here’s the whole office for those of you just tuning in.  And yes, that’s a lot of junk.  When we get the window treatments up and the kitchen filled back up I’ll get you a photo of the room the way it should be.

I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about our kitchen, trust me, I’m tired of not having a kitchen.  Because I have to suffer so do you.  We got most of our counter top yesterday.  One piece was cut too small so they’ll bring another one (hopefully this week) for the area next to the fridge.  You can also see my (our) gorgeous new fridge!  I know, it’s huge, I love it!  My mom calls it the Hummer of refrigerators.  Of course nothing, and I seriously mean nothing, has happened without a ton of drama, dissatisfaction and a few tears.  I won’t get into that, you all know I now hate my contractor, I’m trying to focus on the end results when everything is gorgeous, there are no more strangers in my house, and as long as you don’t look too hard the slight imperfections are totally acceptable.  Sigh.

Walter is lovingly referring to anyone (ahem, Katie and Warren) who wants renderings with all their options to help decide on details – TROUBLE MAKERS.  But for you (and for us) he has done a rendering with both countertops.  He wants to point out that it’s a very quick mock up and not nearly as pretty as his usual work but we have a two year old and it’s what he had time for tonight.

Seeing this makes him waver.  He was so into the dark countertop but now he’s afraid it will just look black because we don’t have great lighting in the kitchen.  The beautiful detail will only been seen on the pass through to the patio and I think it makes him nervous.  I think the other looks a bit matchy-matchy though and quite leopard print in the rendering.  So here’s what you asked for – now which would you choose for YOUR kitchen.

P.S.  We went against the grain and opted for faucet number two.  It’s more expensive but we love it and we are the ones who have to use it, right?  We also heard an awful story about a pull-down faucet (that had as long of a moving neck) that eventually got tired and couldn’t stay up against the rest of the faucet.  We’re hoping the pull-out faucet (with much smaller moving piece) of a better quality brand can keep it together a little better.  Thanks for your votes though! 

We have half of a kitchen!  Woohoo!  The first set of cabinets arrived today.  The rest should come tomorrow.  They’re beautiful!  It’s so nice to see it all coming together.  Below are some photos.

Onto our dilemmas… almost everyone loved faucet one.  We love faucet two.  Faucet two is way more pricey.  What to do?  I’m sure if we never gave you a choice you wouldn’t care or know any better.  Now that you do we are even more torn.  Dilemma two – granite colors.  We’re trying to decide between a light granite with dark accents or a dark granite with light accents.  This is so much harder than I ever thought it would be.  I’ve never been an indecisive person.  The first one matches our tile and cabinets and has a general masses appeal I think.  Not that we’re moving anytime soon so we’re not worried about resale at the moment but it should be considered.  The second one would be way contrasty and modern looking I just wish some of the accent specks were closer to the tile/cabinet color and not as silver/green.  The cooktop would look seamless on number two but that’s not the only thing to consider.  Any thoughts?  Once we decide it will be a week until it’s installed.  They need the time to cut holes for the sink, faucet and cooktop.

And here’s what was done this morning.  Please continue to ignore the dining room disaster and the horrible dust conditions that now coat our floor.

Ummmm, I wasn’t drunk when I took this.  I don’t know what was going on but I’m not going back out there to get another one, you’ll have to wait until Walter comes home to take the gorgeous glamour shots.

You can see the start of the hood here.  The brace is hung.  I hope they can patch our ceiling so it doesn’t show a 25 year difference between the new and old paint and popcorn!  And yes, some day we will update our lighting to something cool.   Someday. 

Here is a photo of our gorgeous handle that will go on all the doors (straight up and down, not at an angle as pictured) -

We have a dilemma.  Which faucet to get.  There is a significant price difference between the two we are considering and it’s really hard to justify.  They have similar features (pull out neck, spray feature, general faucet duties) and they’re the same color but they look pretty different from each other.  We definitely have a favorite but please tell us what yours is.  We’ve been back and forth about why to get the less expensive one and why to get the more expensive one but we’re still so torn.  Which would you choose and why?  Thanks!

Ignore the white streaks in the photo of Faucet 1, it’s a photo of the box because we couldn’t find the promo photo anywhere – including the manufacturers website (is that a cause for concern?).

Faucet 1 -

Faucet 2 -

Our kitchen consists of a stove and a refrigerator.  No counters, no cabinets, no sink, no running water, no ice.  It’s pretty pathetic.  We’re trying to eat in as much as we can and while we don’t mind the plastic utensils, plastic cups and paper plates the PB&J’s aren’t appealing for long.  We are attempting to grill tonight and defrost frozen side dishes (after we find a place for our microwave) but it’s certainly not healthy.  Eating out constantly isn’t healthy for our budget though and believe it or not that gets old too.  Anyway, just a vent.  The cabinets arrive on Tuesday and then a week or so until we get our countertops.  We’ll be having you all over in no time but for now we’re taking all the invites we can get.  We’re even taking offers to wash sippy cups somewhere other than the bathroom!  Pray this all comes together right the first time.  I don’t know if I could handle a delay.

Here are some current photos of the kitchen…

And because everyone asks how big the new office is since the photos of empty space give no relation to size, here’s how big it is – it can hold our entire kitchen, all of our new appliances and the beginning of closet storage from the office.  No, we still haven’t moved in.  I don’t know if we ever will.  I have a feeling we will finish the kitchen, move into the office, move all the nursery furniture from Noah’s room to Kate’s new room (yes, he has two bedroom sets in his room at the moment) and paint the nursery about a week before the baby arrives.  Can you say exhausting?

This photo of the “office” also has a beauty shot of our new hood parts.  It is by far my favorite kitchen purchase (and probably the most expensive).  The contractor opened it and promptly asked if we were opening a restaurant.  Of course not, not with my cooking!

And our pantry -

One nice thing about moving all our stuff out of the kitchen is finding that we were storing A LOT of garbage.  We have about half as much junk to move back which doesn’t make the trip worthwhile but definitely shows us the silver lining!

I have tried so many ways to describe what we’re doing with our kitchen and I usually confuse everyone and get a “that’s nice” so I’ve decided to share our rendering.  Bless my husband’s need to be nerdy, er… technical, I can always count on a perspective before we do anything (paint a room, move a photo, change furniture around).  He loves doing it and I love teasing him so it works out.

Here it is before (from the other day) -

And this SHOULD be after (you can click on it to enlarge) -

He was going to put crap all over the counters to make it more realistic but I’m guessing from the daggers I shot him he decided against it.  We’re really looking forward to having a lot more cabinet and counter space (there are cabinets under all of the countertop “L” closest to you in the photo.  He even rendered the appliances we purchased so this should be incredibly realistic.  I love how much more open it looks without the 70′s soffit to hold the range vent.  Walter is nervous about our fridge.  It’s massive and it’s going to stick out as far as it shows.  He would have much rather had a counter-depth version but GE doesn’t make one with ice and water through the door (which is a requirement for me).  We will keep the old fridge in the garage but with the size of this one we may not need it.  Then again we’re going to be chilling juice boxes for several years so who knows. 

Thank you for letting me share my excitement!