Kitchen planning

Last week I showed you the inspiration for our kitchen design. Today it’s time to show you how that inspiration will hopefully come to life.

First off, here’s my inspiration board….

 

1. Shaker style cabinets
2. Glass insulator chandelier (I’ve been buying up glass insulators like a madwoman!)
3. Silgranit sink
4. Kohler Simplice faucet
5. Wicker & fabric dining chairs
6. Cunard harvest table from MRB Contracting
7. Blue soapstone countertops
8. Wood beams to frame opening to kitchen
9. Boat cleats & glass knobs for cabinetry pulls
10. Turquoise & bright green fabric for bar stools
11. Preverco hardwood flooring
12. Samsung stainless steel induction slide-in range

Paint colours are all Benjamin Moore. Not necessarily the exact colours we’ll go with, but I really like how the green and blues and greys work together. This colour scheme will likely be used right through the whole house.

After not being able to agree on a layout for the kitchen, I asked my friend Paul for help. It was money well spent to have a kitchen designer solve our problems!

Here’s the kitchen area:

We sent Paul the layout that Brian had come up with and I told him what I didn’t like about it – mainly the sink location and the fridge on an angle in the corner next to the windows on the right. Paul came up with a layout that was kind of similar to Brian’s layout, but with some modifications to make me happy. You know what they say – Happy wife, happy life!

My main complaint was Brian wanting the sink under the windows on the right side, looking out towards the trees. I wanted it on the left side, looking out towards the water. But as Paul pointed out, putting it on the right side keeps the right side of the kitchen as the functional side and the left side as the dining side.  It also makes sense because with the dishwasher placed to the right of the sink, it’s next to the cabinets where the dishes will go. Paul added a second smaller prep sink to the island, so there’s a sink with an ocean view after all :-) And he took the fridge out of the corner and incorporated it into the wall of cabinetry. The original plan was to hide the microwave behind a cabinet door, but for code reasons it’ll be built in instead. The large pantry on the right side of the diagram will house a chest freezer and will have doors.

So that’s the final layout for the kitchen. And now here’s the colour scheme that I envision for the kitchen. Brace yourself, it’s kinda crazy! Just keep in mind that this is a quick & dirty mock-up in MS Paint to get an idea of the overall look.

The green cabinet doors will have flat fronts and push latches so it’ll look more like a wall than cabinetry. The cabinets under the windows and the island will be shaker-style. I’m leaning towards Super White Quartzite for the island countertop to contrast with the navy blue. Although I’ve seen some other cool natural stone slabs that I’m thinking about (more on those soon).

I don’t know if our kitchen will turn our exactly like this – I have a habit of changing my mind a lot! – but it’ll definitely be colourful. The challenge will be creating a pretty and functional space that doesn’t take away from the view through the windows. Because the ocean is going to be the real star of our house!

Kitchen dreaming

Currently, there’s a big chunk of icy snow sitting in the middle of our kitchen. The window openings are covered with Tyvek and the walls are studs and styrofoam insulation. Not exactly my dream kitchen ;-) But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about what our kitchen could look like. I’ve been saving inspiration pictures for a couple of years – these are some of my favourites.

I still haven’t decided if the ceiling will be drywall or wood. This kitchen has me leaning towards wood!

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There isn’t going to be a whole lot of wall space in the kitchen, but I really like the look of the wood wall in this kitchen. Love the black framed windows too, but our window frames will be white.

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There’s also the option of going with wood cabinets. I really like the combination of light wood, white, and dark grey in this kitchen.

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As much as I like the kitchens above, I love colour and there definitely needs to be colour in our kitchen. We won’t have a backsplash, so the countertops will be a way to bring colour into the space. This turquoise countertop definitely adds colour to this kitchen.

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Another way to bring colour into the kitchen – blue cabinets. The combination of blue and white cabinets in these two kitchens is a nice balance of colourful and neutral.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about a navy blue island with white or light grey cabinets, like in this kitchen.

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My favourite cabinet door style is shaker, but like the flat doors inn this kitchen. No pulls on the uppers gives them a really sleek look.

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I keep being drawn towards kitchens that combine blue, white, and wood.

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So that’s just a small sampling of kitchens that have been inspiring me. I’ve put these idea together and come up with a kitchen design that’s…. well, let’s just say probably unexpected and definitely not typical!

I’ll be posting my kitchen vision in my next blog post  – stay tuned!

Knock knock

We have doors! The front door is just temporary till I make up my mind about what kind of door I want.

The back doors are permanent and won’t be going anywhere! It was a bit time-consuming getting them squared and level, but putting them into place wasn’t too bad. I was just a bit worried about Brian dropping them on my fingers as I tried to line up the bottom pins with the hinges. The doors are from PolyTech, a company right here in Nova Scotia. So they know how to make doors and windows that can stand up the Atlantic. Well, that’s what we hope!

As you can see in this picture, Brian also finished installing the underlay on this south of the roof. Once the underlay on the north side is done, the house will be pretty much weather-tight. So hopefully no more floods in the house!

Now if I can just decide on the front door….. I really like the idea of an all-glass door with windows on either side, but it kinda creeps me out that people could walk up to the door and have a clear view into the house. Meanwhile, the west and south sided of the house are almost entirely windows – I really make no sense! On the other hand, a solid painted door would be nice, because it’ll be just about the only pop of colour on the exterior of the house.

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From Pinterest, original source unknown

Maybe a curved transom above the door to echo the curve of the peak?

From Houzz, original source unknown

One thing I’m sure about is that I really want a bright green door.

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What kind of door would you choose?

The cold after the storm

Today started off cold – really cold! Not only did it feel like –24 outside, but it felt like 58 inside. Because it WAS 58 inside. EEK!

So when when it’s so cold inside, you may as well go outside and enjoy some beach time :-) Don’t be fooled by the blue sky and sunshine, it was freakin’ COLD out there. I had to keep warming up my fingers after each picture I took.

Sand everywhere! And just yesterday, all this sand was covered with seaweed.

Standing at the edge of the sandbar.

Look how far away Brian is!

Looking back at the cliff from the edge of the water. I don’t remember ever seeing so much sand on the beach last winter.

It’s hard to tell in the picture, but this pile of seaweed was taller then me.

Frosty seaweed close-ups… BRRRR!

There were some interesting ice formations in the sand too. The first one looks like a fossil or prehistoric worm or something.

The good thing about being outside when it’s –24 is that it makes a 58 degree inside feel warm and balmy :-) It actually was a bit warmer than that when we got home, with the propane fireplace kicking in. And this afternoon the furnace guys showed up and fixed the problem. The thermostat battery had died overnight and the thermostat turned itself off, which resulted in a pipe freezing. They warmed up the pipe and it’s now an almost-toasty 69 degrees in the house :-)

That’s some snow!

A week ago on New Year’s Day, I was on the back porch cooking ribs on the BBQ. Today… not so much!

There was so much snow on the porch, we couldn’t get out the door!

That’s one solid foot of snow.

Everything is buried under snow!

I can’t find the driveway!

I managed to get the walkway and porch cleared, but that huge driveway has to wait till the plough comes!

Happy Winter from snowy Nova Scotia!

Happy 2017! Polar Bear Dip and the living beach

So here we are on January 1st – the beginning of a new year and the end (almost) of holiday eating. I’m pretty sure I weigh 10 pounds more today than I did a couple of weeks ago. EEK!

There was some fun on the beach this morning with the annual January 1st Polar Bear Dip. I kinda debated doing it, but then decided to do reconnaissance for next year instead. Yes, I’m a wimp! Gotta give props to the brave – or crazy – people who dove into the waves in spite of the freezing temps and rain…

I seriously felt cold just watching them!

Jackson found a big furry friend to play with…

We headed back to the beach at low tide to walk the dogs and take another set of living beach pictures. Definitely more rocks now, and lots of seaweed too.

Comparing December (top) to January (bottom)…

Hopefully the highlight of 2017 will be finally moving into our house!