New house update and little about choosing paint...

The new house is progressing nicely. As normal, there have been a few hiccups along the way but everything eventually gets worked out and we keep moving forward.

My current home is finally under contract and we have a September 18th closing date so timing is critical at this point. I printed off a calendar , penciled in when everyone must complete their tasks….Paint, cabinets, tops, plumbing, floor refinish, etc….and I shared that schedule with all the subs. Funny things about subs….they sometimes think they work in a vacuum…they forget that 5 other people have to come in AFTER them and if they are one day late it creates a domino affect. And sadly they don’t seem to care! Unfortunately because of our moving schedule I don’t have a day to spare so I am just hoping and praying everyone follows my schedule….guess we will find out! What is the old saying about making plans and God laughs…..

On to my paint choices…. I am not one to anguish over paint choices. I usually find what is all the rage and go with it.

This past month I did learn a valuable lesson about paint though. NEVER have paint mixed at a big box store. I picked a very popular grey for a rent house ….it was a Sherwin Williams color but I had it mixed at a big box store that carries SW…no harm, right. Wrong.
It is blue. I mean like nursery blue. I suspect the person who mixed it put a tad too much of some color in the formula and so it has a “blue” tint so on the wall it is BLUE! If it where a house I was going to live in I would have had to repaint the entire house.

So lesson learned ….have custom paints mixed at a paint store….not that they don’t make mistakes, but that is what they do….they don’t float to every department in a store… they just do paint.

Anywho, in the new house the walls were Accessible Beige…. but I’m not really a “beige” kind of person. I have read a lot of great things about Agreeable Grey, which is very close to Accessible Beige but more on the warm grey spectrum.
So I bought a sample pot, painted a big swatch on the wall, and went with it!
I love it. It really is a great color. And two days after the paint was complete, I found THIS article …. https://theflooringgirl.com/painting/agreeable-gray-neutral-gray-paint-color/ (MY COMPUTER IS AT THE ACCOUNTANTS AND I AM USING AN IPad…clearly there are things I do not know how to do on this thing…like post links and phots!)

The laundry room and guest baths are the exact same color as the last makeovers in this house! ( search it in this site….I can’t post links on this stupid thing!)

The only paint choice I am agonizing over is the big kitchen island… I am leaning towards a warm charcoal grayish color but just don’t know…. at some point inspiration will strike me and I’ll know exactly what I want!

Based on my printed in stone schedule cabinets are due to be delivered and painted Monday….so I guess I better get inspired real quick!

My little signature graphic is on my other computer so until next week…

LIVE THE LIFE YOU LOVE1

BECK

Designing a room....

Everything seems to progressing nicely at the new house…knock on wood! Wood floors are going in, walk in shower is being built, sheetrock repair is being done.

Today I want to talk about “design features.”

As I mentioned before, I kind of “wing it” when it comes to design. Some people need a visual like a design board that shows all the elements of a room.

Me…I find one thing I absolutely love and then go from there.

In the new kitchen, it was this tile….

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I can not tell you how much I LOVE this tile. (It was delivered this week…even more beautiful in person!)

I have one space in the kitchen that is about 8’ long…it is the perfect “cubby” for a cooking center…cook top, oven and microwave. My vision is walnut lowers with two painted uppers to the ceiling, walnut floating shelves, white quartz tops, stainless vent hood and this tile.

This tile has a “brushed gold” accent in it so to tie in the gold with the rest of the kitchen I have decided to go with these simple pendant lights above the island….

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They kind of coordinate with the light fixture I have in my dining room…the exact same one I have ordered for the breakfast room in the new house.

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What can I say, I love what I love!!!

Some really funky gold hardware.

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A touch of “whimsy.” I’m not a big “cabinet hardware” person…I don’t even have them on my cabinets here…but I am going with shaker style cabinets and they will need hardware. I just thought these were fun and different.

The appliances are all stainless. I LOVE my black stainless appliances, but I fear that will be one of those “fad” things. I think in the long run I will be happy with stainless. Also, there is Carrara marble accents in the tile backsplash and greyish veining in the quartz tops…I think the stainless will blend right in.

I have a two door/two drawer refrigerator. I went with a side-by-side.

First, I will NEVER buy another Samsung product. Love the other appliances but the ice maker on the fridge hasn’t worked right since the second year… I actually have to go buy ice every week. Evidently it is a “design flaw” not covered by their warranty. Rampant problem and no real fix. Not cool Samsung.

Second, while I love the drawers, I am just getting too old to bend down and dig through a big ole’ drawer for a frozen chicken. I know side-by-sides are not nearly as energy efficient and they aren’t the “in thing” right now, but I loved the one I had years ago so I am going back with one!

I read reviews and decided to go with either Kitchen Aide or Whirlpool. Considering the price difference, I went with Whirlpool.

The bar stools…I have struggled with that one because I have had mine for 20 years and I still love them especially after this little “makeover”…truth is if I needed “bar height” vs “counter height” I would just take them with me.

Unfortunately they are not counter height and they are iron so cutting them down is not feasible… so I had to find new counter height bar stools. The minute I saw these I knew they were exactly what I want….

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Super simple and I think the walnut color will tie in beautifully with the walnut base cabinets and floating shelves!

This is my “design board”….I drop pictures of what I like into a computer file…each has at least one element I like. I may not like everything in the picture, but there is one thing in each I am drawn to…

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I know I am drawn to walnut cabinets…but I don’t want ALL of them walnut so I am going to have walnut lowers in the “cooking center” and painted uppers. The entire island will be painted. The tops are white quartz with greyish/taupish veining. I was able to go to the quartz place and actually pick out the slabs of quartz I wanted.

Some people HAVE to have a design or “mood” board….

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…something that allows them to see every element of their design (This is not my design board, just one I plucked off Pinterest.)

I get it…and it isn’t hard to make…just find what you want on line and drop it into a file, then create a “board” on a program like Photoshop. You are able to see all your elements and determine if they coordinate.

Personally, I can see every detail in my “minds eye.” I wake up at 3 a.m. every morning and visualize every single element. Probably drives my subs nuts because if I “see” something I like, I will text or email them at 4 a.m. with my idea. (Hopefully they mute their phones at night or the “ding” of my text will wake them at this unGodly hour!)

My motto…YOU DO YOU! If you need a design or mood board, go for it. Do what works for YOU! Probably would have been a lot easier on my cabinet guy had I had a design board rather than 30 random pictures of cabinets and kitchens and having to go through each one to show him the one element in each pictures I love. I only hope and pray he has the same vision as I do!

Guess we’ll see in a few weeks. In the meantime I will continue to micro-manage the poor guys who have to work at the house every day…lol!

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Today I muse about the stress of Remodels....

“Working the plan” can take A LOT of patience…especially on a massive remodel.

It always gets worse before it gets better…in this post I talked about the calm AFTER the storm. Right now I am in the middle of the storm.

The good news is most of the demo is done on the new house and now, little by little, we are putting it back together. Out with the old and in with the new.

In the next few weeks a new walk in shower will be built. New hardwood flooring will go down, new transom windows will be installed. New paint, tops, tile, front door.

It all takes time and a lot of patience. Most of all it takes “working the plan” and clinging to the vision of what will be.

That’s hard to do when the house looks like a bomb went off . Or a sub doesn’t show up when they say they will. Or materials you painstakingly selected have been discontinued. Or the new window in your laundry room is obstructed by a vent pipe smack dab in the middle of the cutout! (All snags I encountered last week!)

It doesn’t matter if you are painting a dresser or remodeling a room or even an entire house. There will be snags…the unexpected will pop up…something will not go as planned.

All part of the process but these hiccups can really stress you out…and stress causes a physiological reaction that hinders your ability to think clearly and make sound decisions.

Last week I expressed a little “impatience” with the plumber who was clearly working his tail off, even though it wasn’t at the pace I personally expected. The next morning I apologized for being so short. While I thought things should have been happening at a faster pace, he didn’t deserve my “grouchiness.”

Prime example of how stress can cause you to say and do things that are NOT COOL.

Stress is not an excuse for bad behavior. While it may explain why you behave the way you do, it is not an EXCUSE for behaving like a jerk.

Remind yourself repeatedly “this too shall pass,” take a deep breath and remember that diamonds are created as a result of tremendous pressure and time.

All that being said, I highly over estimated what I could get done this week…and the most pressing “projects” I need to tackle inside the house entail paint, which is not something I can do while they are repairing sheetrock.

I decided to tackle something I thought I might enjoy…organizing this “shop” so I can move all my tools out of my garage this weekend.

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It has good bare bones so for the time being I don’t plan a major overhaul. Just going to work with what is there and make a few additions. I have no doubt I will eventually “gut” it. Just the way I roll!

I need my tools at the new house more than I will need them at this one. I have so many things I want to build for the new house in the next few weeks, I decided it would be good to have this space relatively organized and all my tools handy.

Besides, it is good to “declutter” spaces when your house is on the market. Closets and shelving may seem obvious but a cluttered garage (even though it makes sense to me) may be a tad off-putting to potential buyers as well.

I’m off to take another bite of the elephant!

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