Tile Shopping & Inspiration, Part 2 - Week 18, Monday

Today I took my lunch break to shop for tile. I went to a few different stores recommended by Oliver and found the best help and selection at CFM. It was a very productive session and I took a lot of pictures of finishes I like to show Riley. He is out of town, so this way I can show him the photos of the ones I like and do the final selections when he gets home.
Here are some of the materials I like:

Cool honeycomb subway tile

Cream colored Natural Stone

Love this rounded marble mosaic from Tierra Sol! I would like to use these for the basement bathroom shower floor or backsplash.

Smooth, porcelain tiles with tonal grain pattern. These could be neat in a shower

Grasscloth textured tiles. Possibly good for bathroom flooring?

More of the Grasscloth tile

Beautiful striped marble tile. This could be great in the master for a more modern take on marble.

Another marble mosaic option.

Traditional black & white hex tiles in a few sizes.

Color options for the above tiles

More traditional hex and mosaic options from Oregon Tile.

Larger scale hex tile,. I think this was 4"? I like the large scale hex a lot. It seems to be hard to find in anything other than white though!

Example of the Savoy tile above installed in a bathroom.

Color options for the 4" hex...kinda boring!

Penny tile! Love these. I am definitely going to put this somewhere, probably in the basement bathroom shower.

Close up of some of the colors I like.

Really neat gray and white marble, possibly an option to Carrara for the master bath.

Traditional white subway tiles.

Little hex tiles in fun colors!

Textured marble mosaic. All the pieces stick out slightly different amounts. I love the look, but cleaning this would be a nightmare!

Siding Almost Complete! - Week 17, Friday

The house is looking great! The siding is almost complete (just a few rows left at the front porch). Again it takes on a new skin and makes me think about painting it a light color...

Primed siding is up (except the last few rows on the front porch we're the guys are working)

South side of house
(Unfortunately there is nothing with can do about the ugly service wires coming to the house above the dining room punch out. Oliver tried to get them relocated, but unless we cough up $50k to have them buried, this is where they will be.)

Back porch detail - porch roof ceiling is in place and primed

More back of the house

Fully sided back of the house

The extra kitchen window has been fully filled in

5th Kitchen window no more! I don't miss it :)

A mess of wires - we are running CAT5, CAT6, electrical and audio through the whole house!

Upstairs bathtub - filled and waiting for final inspection

Master bathroom - tub & shower

Upstairs hall closet with optional washer/dryer plumbing in place

Master Sliding Door - Week 17, Friday

Today, Oliver sent over an idea for the master door into the closet/bathroom area. It's a sliding flat-track door from RealSlidingHardware.com. It's pretty funny because when I first started on Pinterest, an early pin of mine was for a sliding door like this. Here is the pin. Maybe the color won't be the best for our application, but it would be nice to have a solid walnut or partial frosted glass door here.

Front Porch Details & Inspiration - Week 17, Wednesday

The detail decisions are starting to pile on and next on the list is making a plan for the look of the front porch. This is extremely important to the overall feel of the house and as my dad said "will make or break it". No pressure right?

Front columns:
After a lot of research and TONS of inspiration photos, bookmarks, sketches. I think we have a plan for the look of the front columns. We would like them to look traditional craftsman and be made solely of wood or wood tops with cement bases. They will have to be sizable to support the visual weight of the front of the house overhang. Here is one of the inspiration photos I sent to Oliver. We like the tapered top columns and the insets on the bases. Although, the bases are a little short, they have the right idea.
I also sent Oliver a sketch that I did in Illustrator over a photo of the house of what the columns could look like. Please ignore the house color and the railing spacing. Here it is:

Oliver is going to have a test column built for Riley and I to approve next week before he builds the others. I'm excited to see how they will look!

Porch ceiling:
I saw a really amazing front porch through my inspiration hunting with a stained wood ceiling. (See below)

I thought this could be really beautiful on our front porch. I sent the idea over to Oliver and he liked the idea as well. Only issue was the price. Turns out to do a stained wood tongue & groove ceiling is about $1500 more than to do a paint-grade one. It's a bit of a bummer, but we decided there are other areas that $1500 could be better put towards so we are going with a painted ceiling. It will look nice I'm sure. It also opens up a lot of possibilities for doing an accent color there. I've seen some with a light sky blue that look pretty fantastic....

Siding! More Plumbing, Electrical & HVAC - Week 16, Sunday

When we first got to the house this Sunday, we were a little disappointed that the front of the house had not changed much. It had been 5 days since our last visit and all we noticed was the new trim on the skirt. But, once we walked around the back, we saw that the back siding was underway!

Front with trim complete

Driveway (South) side trim

Front side

Garage with door closed

Detail of dining room window exterior

Here it is, our first glimpse of siding!

Sided & primed back of house!

North side of house

Trimmed, sided, primed & sealed window detail

After my family's last visit, my dad had some ideas for the front walk. The original front porch is cement with a impressed grid pattern. My dad's suggestion was to continue this same pattern through the front walk we are planning to add. It will come up the center of the lawn to steps directly in front of the front door. I think this plan will be a really nice addition to the house and make it much more inviting that walking up the driveway.

Front yard - future home of a center front walk

Front porch grid pattern

Here are some interior photos that show the final plumbing, electrical and HVAC details.

Master bath - tub

Master bath - shower (right) & toilet room (left)

Master bath - vanity plumbing for double sinks

Master bath - toilet room, or, the WC

HVAC, ceiling fan & can lighting in master bath

Upstairs bath

Washer & dryer plumbing in upstairs hall closet. This was a late add idea. Originally, we wanted to have a laundry shoot to the basement laundry room, but we realized there was no good home for it where it could function properly. This was an alternative solution that will allow us to add a washer and dryer upstairs at a later date if we get sick of the basement set-up.

Stairwell landing

Main level - front door

Close up of the fireplace built-in cabinet doors - these will be refinished at a later date

Close up of the dining room built-ins

Basement

Basement with bar plumbing

A Kitchen Issue: Window vs. Cabinet - Week 16, Sunday

As the rooms are becoming defined within the house, it is now easier to analyze the layout and visualize the spaces. We have been spending more time walking around the house and discussing the placement of cabinets, doors, walls, lighting etc. One issue we discovered was the lack of overhead cabinets in the kitchen. Originally, I didn't see this as an issue because we were going to have uppers next to the range. Because we chose to go with a double wall oven, these were eliminated from the design. Currently the kitchen has 3 windows along the side wall, 2 windows along the back and a set of french doors next to them. (see below)

Upon our last visit to the house, Oliver met us to discuss some options of how to fix this problem. We tried brainstorming various different solutions on how to have good glassware storage without upper cabinets as well as other places we could put them. Oliver's suggestion was to remove the far left window (of the 3 on the side wall). We saw that as a last resort because we really didn't want to loose any of the integrity of the design or a light source. He also told us about one of the trends right now in kitchen design of putting everything in drawers. Plates, glasses, pots, everything! To keep things orderly and from breaking, there are little rubber dividers inside. Sounds cool, but I just can't do it! When I want a glass of water, I want to open a cabinet to get the glass...

We took a night to sleep on it and consider our options. As soon as we got home, I hopped on Houzz for my daily dose of interior design and found this photo. It was a sign from the Internet Gods! A corner kitchen with 4 windows, exactly what we were considering! It looked much nicer than I thought it would so we decided to go with Oliver on this one.

Kitchen windows - Bye, bye window, the piece of plywood marks the one we are removing.

Kitchen - yellow marks are the placements of the the lighting and island.
Please ignore our lovely substitute doors. The real ones will be all glass :)

This week the window will be removed. It truly is the best way to have traditional storage for our glasses by the sink. I think there will be plenty of light with the 4 windows and two glass french doors.