Kitchen crisis averted

We almost had a major kitchen crisis a couple of weeks ago. Do you remember the beautiful leathered Blue Night marble slabs we put on hold for the kitchen island last summer?

The ones that went so well with the honed Blue Pearl granite that will be going on the perimeter cabinets.

And with the purple island that Brian built.

The templating for the island and cabinet countertops was done a week and a half ago. Two days later, the stone shop called to let us know that no matter how they laid out the island dimensions on the slabs, neither slab was going to work because they were both a couple of inches too short for the proper overhang. DOH! Brian built the island too big!

Choosing another stone wasn’t an option, I NEED leathered Blue Night marble in my life! Brian contemplated reducing the size of the island. Not ideal, but it could be done.

Another option was to use the two Blue Night slabs and have a seam. Not the best option, but probably easier than modifying the island.

Luckily, there was a third option – the stone shop had another slab of Blue Night that was big enough for the island. It was polished, but the shop said they would leather it at no charge. I zipped into the city the next morning to take a look at the potential new slab. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure that I liked it as much as the other slabs. The movement of the stone is different, and it has darker bits that the other slabs don’t have.

But then we looked at it next to the honed Blue Pearl slab, and the two slabs looked pretty great together. The darker bits are just about exactly the same colour as the Blue Pearl.

In the end, I think I may actually like this slab better than the ones we had on hold. Especially once it has the leathered finish, which I absolutely adore.

The countertops are being installed on Tuesday, and I CANNOT WAIT! I’ve been envisioning the kitchen with these two stones for a year, and I’m beyond excited to finally have them in our kitchen :-)

Behind door #1 and #2 and #3…

Disclosure: Thank you to Schlage Canada for partnering with me and providing door solutions for our house build.

We still don’t have a completely finished room in our house, but a couple are pretty close to being done. The guest bedroom is near the top of the list of rooms to finish because Brian snores and he needs to be tucked away in a room by himself so he doesn’t keep me awake all night!

I wanted to do something colourful and different in the bedroom. It’s one of the few rooms in the house that has doors, so it can be closed off and doesn’t really have to flow with the colours through the rest of the house. A sunset colour scheme popped into my head one day, and that’s what I decided to go with. Click here to check out some of my colour inspiration.

Here’s the bedroom in all it’s bare glory:

I chose two Sherwin Williams colours and had them colour-matched in Benjamin Moore paint – Coming Up Roses for the ceiling and Rejuvenate for the walls.

     

First the pink went on the ceiling, and I had some doubts about this crazy colour plan!

But no turning back now! Next up was the orange…

And then Brian installed the wainscoting. It’s strips of 1/2” thick MDF attached to the wall every 16”. The strips are capped with a horizontal strip of the same MDF and a square piece of MDF. It’s all painted PPG Pittsburgh Paints Delicate White colour-matched in Benjamin Moore Advance paint.

I painted the doors Delicate White as well because I wanted them to tie in with the white wainscoting. And I also didn’t want colour overkill!

But each of these white doors has a secret… this is the inside of the closet door:

And the other side of the door to the bathroom…

And the other side of the door to the living room…

Yep, purple and turquoise and bright green are definitely my favourite colours! They’re the same colours I’ve used elsewhere in the house – BM Peerage, BM Douglas Fir, and PARA Paints Lush Turquoise.

I love these unexpected pops of colour when the bedroom doors are open. And I also love our door hardware. As I mentioned in this post, I knew I wanted black knobs or levers on the doors, so when we ordered the Madison doors from Jeldwen, we requested black hinges.

After checking out the Schlage Style Selector, we decided on the Broadway lever in matte black from Schalge Canada.

I really like the simple lines of the Broadway lever. It’s clean and contemporary, and feels smooth and solid when you turn it. And the matte black ties in perfectly with our super-tall black chimney and other dark metal accents in the house.

Of course, Schalge carries door hardware in a wide variety of finishes and styles to suit any decor. Click here to check out the Schalge Style Selector. Coincidentally, Jennifer at Rambling Renovators installed the same matte black Broadway lever on the turquoise door to her craft room :-) Schlage door hardware can match the other finishes in your home to complement your home’s unique style and décor.

For now, I’m using our existing furniture and accessories in the room. The only things I bought new are the ceiling light fixture and the duvet cover, both from HomeSense. I still need to figure out what art to hang and where (it won’t be leaning against the walls forever, I hope!), but here’s the almost-finished guest bedroom.

Door hardware is used in every room, making it the perfect accessory to help tie the entire home’s look together. And it’s the perfect finishing touch to complement a room’s look. It’s a quick, affordable, and impactful way to express your personal style. We installed Broadway levers on the entry closet and upstairs bathroom doors as well to continue the flow of black accents throughout the house.

For more information on Schalge door solutions, click here to visit the Schlage Canada web site, and click here to find Schalge retailer near you. To see the completed guest bedroom, check back here soon :-)

Connect with Schlage Canada on social media:

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Pinterest

A whole lotta catching up to do!

Wow, it’s been way too long since I last wrote a blog post! It would take too long to write about everything we’ve done over the last couple of months, but here’s the biggest news – WE’VE MOVED IN! There’s still a lot of work to do, but we have a bathroom and a makeshift (and very messy) kitchen and a wood stove for heat and a comfy bed, so really, what more do we need? :-)

So here’s a rundown of what’s been going on around the house lately….

Brian built and installed the kitchen island. And it’s PURPLE! Benjamin Moore Peerage, to be exact. It’s different, and I LOVE it!

For now, it’s got a very classy plywood countertop – I can’t wait to get the marble installed. I double-checked that the purple works with the marble, and it does :-) Although the purple looks a lot different in this picture than it does in the island pictures.

The glass for the shower in the upstairs bathroom has been installed, and we have a functioning toilet and a temporary
pedestal sink. The closest-to-finished room that we have at this point.

We installed one of two light fixtures above the living room. It’s the SLY from Eurofase. I love how it looks like waves :-) Didn’t love installing it so much, though!

And we installed this light fixture from Home Depot in the master bedroom. I love how it emulates the angles of the ceiling. We’ll install another one at the opposite end of the second floor in the den/craft area.

We have TV! As long as we don’t lose the satellite signal when it’s raining… and installing the navy blue shiplap (BM Van Deusen Blue) is almost done.

Fuzion Flooring engineered oak hardwood flooring downstairs…

And upstairs, along with custom made baseboards.

The front entry is painted Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray and the front door is Benjamin Moore Douglas Fir. I’m not crazy about how the tiles in the entry look, so I solved the problem with an outdoor rug for $35 from Giant Tiger :-)

With all the white ceiling upstairs and the white shiplap downstairs, I wanted to bring more colour into the house. So I painted some interior doors PARA Paints Lush Turquoise and BM Douglas Fir.

We even bought new pans and a kettle for our induction stove that coincidentally match the doors!

 

Half the tiling in the downstairs bathroom is done. This end of the room in the laundry area.

It was a very exciting day when the washer and dryer went in – finally, clean underwear! They’re Electrolux front loaders, and so far I’m really happy with them. We’ll be putting a wood countertop over them and some shelving on the wall.

Way back when, I wrote this post about putting the bed in the master bedroom in the center of the room to take advantage of the vie through the skylights. And for a change, I won this battle! How’s this for a bed with a view? :-)

Whew! That was a long wrap-up, but there was a lot of ground to cover! At the moment, we’re putting together and installing baseboards and trim on the main floor, and I’m about to paint the guest bedroom – once I settle on a colour. I’ll really try to be better about sharing progress updates more regularly. Maybe once or twice a week instead of once every two months! Thanks to all of you who follow the blog and for waiting so long for an update :-)

One almost-finished room

Hey, we finally have a room in the house that’s looking like an actual real room! The upstairs bathroom is painted (minus a few touch-ups), tiled, and even has running water :-)

This room is a bit of an unusual shape with the sloped ceiling. After considering different tiling options, we decided to tile the entire shower & toilet wall. And we brought the tiles up into the slope of the ceiling too. Otherwise, the wall and room would have looked a bit squat. FYI, gravity is not kind to a person who’s grouting a sloped ceiling!

I wanted the tiles to run vertically to be reminiscent of water running down the wall. And instead of the usual subway tile layout, we went with 1/3 offset. I think it gives the wall more of a random look.

Originally the glass mosaic tiles were only going to go into the niche, but I’m really happy that we brought them onto the turquoise wall as well.

The shelves in the niche and the ledge along the half wall are Silestone Calacatta Gold. They’re all remnants that we picked out of the discard pile at a local stone shop. We’re also going with Calacatta Gold for the vanity countertop.

The floor tiles are laid in a simple brick pattern and were much easier to grout than the shower walls and sloped ceiling! They’re still a bit wet in this picture – the finish is actually matte

Fast forward a few days, and Brian has installed the shower head, diverter, and body jets. There’s still the handheld sprayer to install. All the bathroom faucets are from Riobel.

Very excited to have a rainhead :-)

I cannot wait to have a shower with body jets again. We had them in or shower in Ottawa and I used them every single day. I’d prefer jets that don’t stick out, but these ones are adjustable which is a nice feature.

The diverter lets you choose where the water comes out – body jets, rain head, hand held, or a combination. You can also set it to the water temperature that you want and then just leave it there.

The wall hung toilet isn’t installed yet, but the flusher is in :-)

Not only is it exciting to be getting close to having a finished room, but once the bathroom is done, we’ll be pretty close to being able to move in. And THAT is going to be SUPER-exciting!

Turquoise shower tiles – Casa Roma, Maiolica Aquamarine
White shower tiles – Casa Roma, Waves
Glass mosaic tiles – Elegant Flooring, Shiny Aegean Blu
Floor tiles – Centura Templestone Grigio