My Kitchen Mood Board

Let's just pretend we don't still have an asbestos problem in our basement and move on to more fun topics - KITCHEN! This is a close to a mood board as I'm getting, since I don't really do those. So here's how it is shaping up.

Despite the strong outpouring of support for our previous choice of Peppercorn White, I couldn't leave well enough alone and commit. So we went to a countertop supply center to have a look around. There was no shortage of stuff to look at:

We even got to dress up in hot pink hard hats, because this was a factory where they were actually lifting, moving, and cutting stone. OK, so they also had yellow hats, but where's the fun in that?

When I saw it, I knew it was love:

76, Rolling Fog. Definitely more my style. Here's a big view of Peppercorn White, for comparison, number 15:

As I feared, the larger sample looked so much busier than I wanted. I feel like this was the same sensation I experienced after sampling a bunch of greens in the nursery only to paint it a color that turned out to be incredibly LOUD! We took home some more samples (I briefly considered taking home enough samples to make a coaster set, only to realize the edges were probably too sharp to be considered child-safe). Rolling Fog is all the way on the right and Peppercorn White is the top left. The middle row is Mara Blanca, also a choice that we liked, but a tad too boring.

And so, with that, we committed whole-heartedly. And now, onto other choices we've made for the kitchen. We solved the issue on making our backsplash interesting without being *too* interesting by choosing a subway tile style with some subtle texture, Highland Park by MSI (the same people who make our quartz counter) in whisper white. And again, for something a little interesting, we've asked our tile installer to put them together like this - hopefully it works out well:

We're still undecided on our dining room accent light, mostly because D and I seem to have conflicting opinions. He like the kind of hanging pendants with an old-fashioned-looking lightbulb with exposed filament (they're all LEDs by now, so it's totally fake). I like elegant chandeliers, which, admittedly, might look out of place with our decor. I'm willing to compromise with pendants that use textured glass (I suggested mercury glass, but D wasn't a fan). So here are the current contenders, in order from his preference to mine (literally - our choices run exactly opposite each other):

West Elm Sculptural Glass

Pottery Barn McCarthy

Pottery Barn Paxton

Pottery Barn Arden Crystal Chandelier

For knobs and pulls, we're using some pretty standard looking brushed nickel ones from Home Depot. We still have to commit to a paint color but we're going to go with some very similar to what we have now, so if we don't get out to pick up some paint swatches, we'll just have the painter color-match it.

And with that, we're off! First payment paid and first day of work scheduled for Friday!

The verdict

Yes. Yes it is.

The Suspense is Killing Me (I hope not literally)

This isn't the post I planned to write next. I have some exciting kitchen ideas and some beautiful flowers that were all just waiting to be posted. But suddenly, a heating pipe in our basement started leaking. Not onto our heads, because it is wrapped with insulation, but leaking for sure. We could see some wet rusty stuff forming. Super slow, maybe a pinhole leak, and we're not using our heating right now. Not a big deal. D called our heating guy, who was out of town for a few days but promised he would come take a look.

He stopped by today. Here is the leaky pipe, from two angles. Can you guess the potential problem?

Asbestos.

Ughhhhhhhhh.

A mitigation company came and took a sample for testing. What was going to be a minor and cheap repair may turn into something much bigger and more annoying. Stay tuned - we should know for sure tomorrow.

Lumberjack Husband

It's always hard to photograph foliage, given the way photos are great at removing all depth. But if you look at the picture below at our new little maple tree, you'll see a tree behind it and to the right that is occupying the space and sunlight where I'd like new maple to grow:

 Here's a picture from the exact opposite side, behind the offending tree and, past it, to the maple.

It hasn't looked great pretty much ever, and was on our list to be removed. D figured it was small enough that he could handle it. It certainly wasn't big enough to hit our patio or house, and he was pretty sure he could angle it towards the empty lot where most of it could just lie there undisturbed until he could carve it up. You'll note that back in 2012, I blogged that D did not know anything about cutting down trees and he didn't have the right tools. Apparently very little has changed.

He had a hand saw. A tiny hand saw. Tim the Toolman Taylor he is not. And yes, I made a 20-year-old reference. He did not let that stop him:

He cut a triangle in it in the direction he wanted the tree to go, which he learned thanks to some youtube videos and google searches:

The tree had other plans, falling exactly opposite the direction he wanted and towards the swing set (fortunately still a few feet off). By the time it was close to falling, he knew which way it was going to go and we stood appropriately out of the way. He quickly sawed off all the branches and dragged them to the curb for pick-up.

He's now slowly chopping through the trunk whenever the mood strikes him (and when the weather is not 100 degrees), taking it apart piece by piece.

Here's a before and after view from upstairs - the maple is hidden behind the tulip tree occupying the left side of the screen. I circled the part that changed.

And for an action shot:

I failed to mention perhaps the most important part of this post. When did this awesome guy choose to conquer nature with a tiny hand tool? Father's Day! Maybe next year I should buy him a chain saw...

Decisions, decisions

We're still making decisions about our kitchen but mostly we're making decisions about who to hire to do our kitchen. The first company* to come out has been insistent that he can't give us an estimate until we pick our counter and tile. We thought we had our counter but found a couple more enticing options on the website and asked to see a few that had not been brought over to us (specifically Rolling Fog and Pelican White, if you're keeping track). But the counter person has not been particularly responsive, so in an effort to keep moving, we took our borrowed Peppercorn White sample to the tile store that had been recommended to us and got to work.

See anything you like? After walking around a few larger displays (thanks to IKEA, among other things), we know that we like offset tiles, like subway tile patterning, rather than tiles that line up vertically. We don't like the tiny decorative glass ones that we loved so much when designing an accent tile in our bathroom. We think they would be too busy in our kitchen. We do, however, seem to like some kind of texture or pattern more than just plain white subway tiles. So here are some options we're considering.

This one is probably *too* textured, but it was kind of cool.

Too much Turkish sauna-vibe maybe? 

We like it! But would it be too busy for a full backsplash?

Hard to tell from the picture but it's sort of iridescent.

For this one, we like the wavy pattern on top, but in the white just below it.
 

In the meantime, a second company* came out and more reasonably told us he would give us some baseline prices in a few days, taking into account our general counter and tile preferences. We plan to push back on company 1 to insist on the same. When we asked to see the additional two counter options, he said we would have to travel about 30 miles to the counter store and pick which one we liked definitively before he could give us prices. Now, I understand that our selection impacts price. But wasting a Saturday to pick out countertops before we even pick out our installer seems a bit much to task. We may have to move down to company 3* and drop 1 before they get very far.


*I'm using "company" as shorthand but in reality, most of these people are just single contractors who then subcontract out the counter and do all the installation of the rest by themselves.

Counter-point

Counter guy came today with some samples in the white to gray color scheme we were thinking of. It wasn't Silestone brand, but a similar (and cheaper) quartz composite, MSI Q Quartz. We're doing some reading to find out if it's comparable, but a quick look seems to suggest it should be just fine.

Here's the whole layout he brought. Right off the bat, we were able to eliminate the two solid colors (5 and 8, in the main row) and the brownish ones (2 and the one up higher than the rest).

 That left the cooler grays and whites.

The guy took plenty of measurements, and noted that our sink might cause a problem. Apparently it's cast iron and very heavy, and he believe's it's being held up with a frame for support, and not simply fitted in with an under-mount, because the caulking structure wouldn't hold it up. This will affect the fine tuning counter measurements. He said that if we decide to go with this contractor, he would need to remove the sink and take the final precise measurements of the hole before the counter is fully cut, to make it fit perfectly. He also suggested a different alternative - a new, stainless sink. Trade cast iron for steel? No way. I didn't realize it was cast iron but it makes sense - it's super sturdy and cleans up well, and it is spacious and wonderful. And apparently it is a Kohler K5834. Thank goodness for phone camera reaching into strange places - here is the underside of the sink, from inside the cabinet.

For now, we will worry about those logistics later. We're still in the estimate stage of the game, though we have yet to find a second person/company we have wanted to invite out to give us one. We usually rely on neighbor recommendations and the kitchen remodeler seems to be a sparsely populated category, at least for the (low) level of remodeling we intend to do.

So in any case, today we considered our counter options. It may be hard to tell from this picture but we have them sort of arranged light to dark with a similar rock pattern on the bottom "row" (I use the term pretty loosely here - we were in a rush to take photos). We also liked the smoother marbling of the two on the top with the solid in between. What's your favorite? Scroll down to see what we picked (though it's still not too late to change our mind of course, so please share your favorite). 

The middle one on the bottom was our winner. We thought the one to its left was too monotone, though we did like how much it would potentially lighten our room. The one on the right (askew in the picture) was too similar to the color we currently have and, while we love the darker grays, thought it would close the room in too much. And the quartz pattern in that row looks, we think, more natural and actually set with embedded stones.

So "White Peppercorn" is the winner (probably). Though now that we have a new countertop brand, I'm tempted to peruse the website and select all manner of choices beyond the 10 or so samples that he brought. What do you think?

And now for something different: Kitchen Refresh

We've begun doing the early legwork on planning our kitchen...refresh. Let's call it a refresh. It certainly isn't a remodel. The cabinets are staying, the layout is staying and we aren't replacing any appliances. But it's time for an update. The counter is cracked and, since swapping out the linoleum, has become the cheapest part of our kitchen. Not cheap in a good way, cheap in a "why did the previous owners shell out so much for the cabinets and not get a good countertop?" It's been very good to us for years, but now in addition to being cheap, it's showing signs of wear, having a crack all the way through on the side that had to be removed during our new addition construction. And if we're gong to replace the counter, I can get a backsplash like I've always wanted. And if we're doing all that, we might as well pay the person to fix the cracked ceiling and repaint everything too, and and and. This is starting to feel like "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." But here we are, at the start of making a to-do list that keeps getting longer.

Here's a reminder of what our kitchen looks like now. This picture has obviously been staged in no way, so please excuse the mess - this is what life looks like these days.

Here's a beautiful underside view of our Corian counters, wrapped over some kind of wood composite. Probably not a view most people consider when choosing counters, but since I'm often on the floor playing with the kids, it's a view I see more often than you'd expect.

Everything has to match/compliment our dark cabinets, since those are staying. It makes sense to me to lighten up the kitchen by swapping out our dark gray counters with something bright. We are heavily leaning towards Silestone, despite the price, because it's strong and nonporous and doesn't need treating/sealing. We're open to other ideas if you have a suggestion.

Based on Silestone's color assistant website, I think I'd like something that has veins to look like marble, or maybe specks to look like granite. Eternal Calacatta Classic looks nice, as does Lyra or White Arabesque. Obviously we'd need to see them in person.

Then comes the backsplash. We're thinking of some kind of subway tile look, maybe with a pearly white. Or maybe slightly smaller rectangles, but also in a gray/pearly white shade. A friend suggested getting the grout done in the darker gray of the veins/specks of the counter, which sounds like it would look good. He also suggested avoiding the 3'' counter wrap that goes along the wall and getting the backsplash all the way down to the countertop.

Here are some random pictures I've compiled from the internet as I try to find inspiration. What do you think?

Personally I have always adored pressed tin. Whenever it's on a ceiling in a bar, I always notice it and enjoy it. It's probably not realistic, both because it would be hard to clean and because it looks too dark and too remarkable to blend well, but I'm putting it out there anyway as an idea. Do you like it?

As usually, I find it easier to find looks that I hate, rather than ones I love. Here some kitchens that have similar color schemes but that I find ugly.

Apparently, I don't like square tiles:

And even though I like having a decorative tile row in our bathroom, this doesn't look good in a kitchen, to me:

 And despite saying I like subway tile, this is too boring:

 The rectangles in this are too narrow and the color is too varies:

Natural stone looks like like it's pretending to be the wall of a fortress. A big nope:

I still haven't found the perfect "this is what I want" picture, but maybe I will eventually. We had our first contractor com out to start giving us price estimates and he recommended a tile store, so we may have to go shop in person to find our inspiration.

Other things we're looking to possibly "refresh" in the kitchen:

• New cabinet pulls/handles
• New coat of paint
• New dining room light
• New kitchen light, possibly switching to recessed lighting
• New under-cabinet lights
• Fresh coat of stain on some of the cabinet edges, where the wood has gotten worn

We'll see how what we end up deciding to do as we start to figure out pricing and time demands.

The ants are back, again

Last year, like every year lately, we got ants. The difference was that D discovered the only effective solution to-date to get rid of them. This year, they snuck up early and in an unexpected spot - the living room front door area, where we keep the kids' jackets and the diaper bag. What were they after? You may have guessed it - food in the diaper bag. Guess those boxes of raisins are no match for ants.

D had kept the solution he'd made last year, containing water, sugar, Borax, and cotton balls. He put one along their path.

They flocked to it within minutes, and the problem, like so many others like it, became worse before it got better.

Fortunately we left town for 3 days, leaving the doors to the cubbies open and freshly washed and the cotton ball in place. Just a single cotton ball.

We came back from our trip - NO ANTS! None. They gobbled up the poison, brought it back to their friends, and that was that.

That night, we found another little path back in their usual location, next to the kitchen oven. I forgot to take a picture evidently, but they got the same treatment. Next day - no ants. This stuff is amazing. And while Borax isn't exactly safe for kids, in the small quantities used on the cotton ball and compared to real pesticides, this is a pretty good solution. The bottle is well-labeled and out of reach in the garage of course.

Be gone, ants!

Happy Little Trees

The trees we planted in November are looking very happy. We've been dutifully watering them each day (and now, thanks to some torrential rains, they're getting plenty on their own) and they are leafing out beautifully.

Here is the maple in our front yard, evidently still leaning after a few months of training. We took the band off to see how it was doing and clearly it still needs some help learning to grow straight.

The maple in the back has a much rounder ball of leaves and seems much fuller - which will make for a nice and robust shade cover in the maybe not too distant future. The tree to the right in this picture is on the chopping block, sort of literally. It's mostly dead and now it is stealing light from our maple, so we plan to cut it down soon.

 The Japanese Snowbell is also looking happy.

And now for the very littlest of trees. D is on a mission to replant those random trees in our yard that grew in our flower beds from natural causes. He's planting a row of them along the property line with the empty lot in an effort to (one day) bring back some shade to that side of the house. Here is a tin maple we found in a garden:

He's also planting a row of them at the curb between the sidewalk and the street. It's not technically our property but it is ours to maintain. Our town recently went through planting some saplings along certain streets, but ours was not one of them. The trees that do exist in that space are looking old and worn out, so it's time to replenish the tree canopy here as well. These are tulip trees but we have a few maple babies growing in our gardens that we plan to put in this area as well, maybe not until after the hot summer.

And now a diversion to show you what has apparently become our very purple spring garden. Right now the alliums are in full bloom, as are the dark purple irises and the clematis. The lighter purple irises and the purple phlox are past their peak but still hanging on. I am loving having a garden in my favorite color. Though I'm excited for the yellows of the late summer black-eyed susans too (hopefully with some purple echinacea thrown in for good measure).

And finally, some new additions to our patio - two very inexpensive adirondack chairs from Target to match the mini ones we got the kids. I should have about another week to enjoy them before the mosquitoes come out in full force.