The kitchen in my head

Don’t you love it when you’re not looking for something but you find it anyway? A couple of weeks ago, I came across a kitchen designed by Kimberley Harrison Interiors that almost made me squeal – I finally found the kitchen that was in my head.

I love the dark blue island with the light countertop contrasting with the light grey perimeter cabinetry and dark countertop. I love the light hardwood flooring. I’m not totally in love with the wood legs on the island, but I do love the wood combined with the dark blue and light grey.

The simple Shaker style doors and drawers are just what I want in our kitchen.

Love this shimmery wallpaper too, but don’t think we’ll be putting wallpaper in our house – I’m sure the moist ocean air would have it peeling off in no time!

And then I stumbled across this kitchen by Martha O’Hara Interiors with a wall of cabinetry that’s similar to the one that we’ll have. Not so sure about the green, but otherwise it’s what I see in my head but have trouble visualizing in real life.

Our wall of cabinets won’t have a counter area, but it’ll be two different depths to allow for a full-size fridge instead of counter-depth. We’ll also have an upright freezer on this wall, as well as a sink in the island and a slide-in range.

I really, really, really love the look of light cabinets with a dark blue island. And I’m surprising myself by thinking about using brushed brass hardware on the cabinets. I guess I really am a child of the ‘80s :-)

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Is it just me, or do you have trouble visualizing how a room will look without a picture?

The unplanned kitchen plan

The thing about coming up with a deign plan way before it’s time to implement the design plan is that there’s plenty of time and opportunity for the design plan to be replaced with a new and improved design plan.

Way back before we even started building, I wanted a soapstone countertop in the kitchen. I love the look and feel of soapstone, and I’m OK with the fact that it develops a patina over time and won’t always look new and freshly installed.

The one thing that I’m not crazy about, though, is that soapstone should really be oiled or waxed regularly, and that turns the stone from grey to almost black. I really would prefer something lighter.

We know a few people who got their soapstone countertops from Nova Tile & Marble in Dartmouth, so I decided to go check them out for myself. Amber brought me into the back to look at the soapstone slabs they had in stock. And that was when it happened…. my plan for soapstone went out the window when I saw a piece of marble called Blue Night. It was a greyish-blue (or blueish-grey) with a glossy polished finish, and it was gorgeous.

And even more gorgeous was the little bit of a leathered Blue Night slab peeking out from behind the polished slab.

I could only see a small part of it, but that was enough for me to fall in love.

I kept thinking about that leathered Blue Night slab all the way home. The fact that the clouds reminded me of it made it hard to stop thinking about!

By the time I got home, I decided that I need to have this marble in my life. The island countertop could be Blue Night and the perimeter countertops could be soapstone.

Until…

I went back to Nova Tile & Marble to pick up the sample of honed Blue Pearl granite I had requested. I held it up next to the Blue Night marble, and it was like the two were meant to be together…

So soapstone is out and marble & granite are in. And now the wall cabinets that were maybe were going to be green and then probably blue will now most likely be grey. There are quite a few other changes to my original kitchen design plan too, which I’ll tell you about in my next post.

The Living Beach – August 1, 2017

Beaches are indeed like living creatures: they grow, they die, they feed, they starve, they respond to stress,
they adapt to change. They are among the most mysterious, alluring and
implacable features in our environment.

Excerpt from The Living Beach

What a difference a year makes! Or maybe not so much…. it’s now exactly one year since I started doing monthly comparisons of the changes at our local beach. Although the beach itself changes from day to day, the cycle from season to season is the same. Lots of rocks in the winter and spring after the sand washes away, and then the sand comes back to shore in the summer and fall. Walking on the beach now, you’d never guess that there are so many rocks below your feet covered by I have no idea how many –illions of grains of sand!

For one last time, here’s the beach at low tide today….

And here’s a three-way comparison – July 1st, today, and August 1st one year ago…

And just to see how the beach changes in six months, here’s the beach on March 1st…

I have no idea why the sand comes to shore and then gets washed away and then comes back to shore and then gets washed away again year after year. Mother Nature is mysterious that way :-) But it certainly makes the beach a fascinating and ever-changing place – guess that’s why Silver Donald Cameron calls it The Living Beach :-)