Design over pretzels

Yesterday the ear doctor and I went to a hole in the wall for lunch and had the most outstanding cheese steak I've ever had in my life. While we were sitting enjoying our free pretzel and first taste of birch beer the Food Network was playing on the TV in the corner. I thought it was an odd choice because most of the other patrons were big mechanic type guys. For some reason it made me smile to see these guys eating their lunch and watching Tyler Florence stuff a turkey with fresh sage sprigs.

Anyway, we were both watching the show as well and at the same exact moment we turned to each other and said, "we love that tile"

If you haven't seen the show, he has this gorgeous green subway tile lining the entire wall of his kitchen set. Since then we've updated our kitchen design plan to feature this beautiful idea. Here's where we're at as of today:

Outside wall: Dark cork snap-in-place cork floor, shaker style cream colored cabinets, chocolate brown laminate counter top, butcher block shelves floating out under the cabinets (my dad offered to MAKE these), LG stainless french door fridge and dishwasher, stainless steel sink with cool faucet, and beautiful green subway tile.

Inside wall: Same dark floor, same shaker cabinets, same chocolate counter top, same butcher block floating shelves, same tile, LG microwave and stove (there's a great sale right now if we buy all the same brand of appliances...basically the dishwasher will be free) the remainder of the walls will painted a soft gray color.

Here is my question for you...any great sources for green subway tile?

Obligatory New Moon Post

Friday morning I woke up at 5 am and got to work.

And I worked at a frenzied pace so I could leave by 2 and meet up at the new house to unpack the first of 2 fully loaded moving vans. Being my mother's daughter I was DROWNED in sweat in 10 minutes flat. We ladies do not do physical exercise daintily.

At 5:30, back aching and knees bruised from moving around heavy boxes we took a trip to a discount flooring store where we basically ran from row to row trying to make a very important choice in less than 5 minutes.

At 5:45 we gave up and I drove back up to our apartment to change into something not covered with the 15 layers of dust we haven't removed from our furniture since the last move 2.5 years ago.

No time for a shower, I thank the heavens that I'd remembered to wash my new jeans the day before because at least THEY will show up to the party clean.

At 6:45 I rushed myself to the living room of a dear friend. She had convinced me that the best possible thing for me to do this Friday night, in the middle of moving, in the middle of a full-on kitchen renovation was to co-host a New Moon release party with her. By 7 we had about 20 of people crowded around a dessert table giggling like 13 year olds.

So is it any wonder that at the 10:10 pm showing of the movie I was a bit tired? I was not in the mood to be sitting in the 4th row of a giant movie theater, craning my neck and watching teenagers go on and on coldly reciting dialog straight from Ms Meyers tome. And then they flash this beauty up on the screen:

Gross.

And pull up your pants.

I wish I'd stayed home and slept instead.

Burglar beware

My dad has been here in Colorado all week helping us destroy our kitchen and get all our stuff moved into the new house. As a result my mom has been home alone up in Washington.

Before they left to drop my dad off at the airport he went out into the garage and rifled around through all the miscellaneous kid paraphernalia that still litters my parent's house. He came back in carrying my little pint sized aluminum bat from little league.

Confused, my mom looked him and asked, "what's that for?"

To which he replied, "well, we don't have a gun in the house..."


She shook her head and chuckled as he stuck it in the front foyer closet. I guess he's just worried about my mom fending off intruders while he's not there to defend her honor.


When she returned home from dropping him off at the airport she went into her bedroom to lay down for a minute and bumped her heel on something hard. The bat had been relocated to the side of her bed.



Is that not the cutest story you've heard in a while?

A new direction?

Well, after 2 straight days trying to reveal our precious hardwood flooring we found out that a previous owner had adhered vinyl floor with an asphalt based adhesive. Yup, I tried to get my dad to rip up the FREEWAY that someone laid in my kitchen.



Mission original hardwood is officially over.



My second idea for flooring was dark cork, suggested by one of my beloved readers. The more I read about it the more I thought it an idea material. Soft, easy to install, eco-friendly...all things I love. Want to know what I don't love? No one has it in stock. Annoying.



And for some reason having a dark floor has been permanently wedged in my mind...that is until I saw this picture (via Apartment Therapy from Domino):







Now, I thought I was dead set against tile in the kitchen. I thought it would be cold and hard and not fit with the historic character of the house. But, how beautiful is that light blue penny tile (I assume) floor? With all the white and that pretty gray color as an accent? I just think it's really stunning. To me it looks both modern and very traditional at the same time. What do you think?

Casualties

I had grand ideas of showing you the step by step process of our little house renovation here on this blog. I thought it would be so fun to document the whole thing and get your ideas and encouragement. I thought I'd post how-tos and our selection process...the whole she-bang.

Those ideas were grand indeed.

Because here's the thing. When I'm not furiously working my job to try to get everything done there I'm feverishly heaving and schlepping and painting at the house. I don't find myself with a spare 30 minutes to take pictures, arrange text, tell funny stories and then try to make it all looks effortless, as most bloggers are apt to do. Turns out that something has to get cut from the day.

And it can't be sleep.

Sweet Jezebel, every minute I can spend in my warm soft bed has become precious indeed.

Great news

After being in our new house for 7 minutes my dad took a hammer and pry bar to the tiles on the kitchen floor and got to work. What we found:

Top Layer: Gross tile with REALLY wide grout lines
Next Layer: .5" thick cement board...why they thought they needed that thick is beyond me
Next Layer: Old vinyl or linoleum...hard to tell which yet...is it strange that I'm excited to see what ugly pattern it is?
Final Layer: HARDWOOD!

Hooray!

Now we'll just have to see the condition. Here's hoping that they (1) didn't use too much glue to lay down the vinyl and (2) did not staple it to the hardwood every 2 inches like some previous owners in my sister's home.

Right now the ear doctor and my dad are at Home Depot buying new sledgehammers and renting that tile scraping thing. Is there anything as exciting for a man than purchasing a new sledgehammer with a job in mind?

I think not.

Sweet Tooth

I know I'm completely ungrateful and probably pretty rude for posting this, but I just don't care. It got under my skin and now it's all that comes to mind when I want to write.


For those of you who don't know, I'm a salt fanatic. I crave potato chips and french onion soup. I love it so much that when I get fries I douse them liberally with additional salt then smash them into the piles of salt left on my tray just so that my sodium tooth is sated. When I was little my mom would serve dinner and before I even tasted it I'd pick up the shaker and make a little white Christmas on my plate. I never understood why this hurt her feelings...until last night.

I was invited over to the home of a very awesome new couple. We'd had a few previous chats where I mentioned my love of baking. Being a guest, I asked the wife what I could bring to dinner. Being the gracious hostess she suggested I bring dessert.

Love that.

All week I thought about what I would make. Right now we are dead smack in the middle of packing and moving, so something elaborate was out. Knowing that pears are still pretty great this time of year, I settled on this harvest pear crisp from the current BA. I knew it probably wasn't going to blow anyone's mind, but it would be good, fast and easy. Just what the doctor ordered.

I prepped it ahead of time and just when we walked in the door I popped it in the oven. 50 minutes later I pulled it out of the oven and admired how bubbly and delicious it looked.

Well.


The wife took one look, turned to me with a truly pained look and said, "I don't like fruit"


?!?!?!?!?

Are you kidding me? It was about 12 degrees and snowy outside last night and you're turning down warm, bubbly fruit crisp topped with vanilla ice cream? Are you nuts? But then I thought, oh well, I should have asked. Some people don't like fruit desserts...that's alright.


I scooped us up 3 bowls, one for me, one for the ear doctor and one for the husband. As I set the warm delicious goodness down in front of the husband he looked at it, got up, went to the fridge to get HERSEY'S SYRUP and proceeded to drown my dessert in the stuff. He didn't even TRY it without the cheap topping.


After this experience I have 2 thoughts: 1) only make these people chocolate cake from a box and 2) apologize to my mom for salting before tasting.

The before

I thought I'd give you a post that was filled with the before photos of our kitchen. As a reminder here is a birds eye view of the layout of our house. The kitchen is off the dining room and bathroom and has a mudroom attached:

Here is a picture of the actual room as it was on the day of our walk through. These pics were taken standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the mudroom. The rolling island I talked about on the last post would probably usually be tucked against the far wall above that awesome black heat vent.

And here is a picture of the room from standing in the door between the dining room and kitchen:

Notice how there are no lower cabinets along the inside wall, but a stainless table which the previous owners left behind. I kind of like the industrial vibe, but it's pretty horribly stained and scratched. Right now it is our inside work bench and is full of paint cans and drill bits.

What you can't see is that the tile in the kitchen is more than a full inch higher that the original hardwood floor in the dining room. I really hope that the hardwood is under all those little drab dingy tiles. It would be my absolute dream to rip those up and just refinish the hardwood.

If I can't do that, what kind of flooring should I put in?