Kitchen Cabinets and a Hand Print

When we first started putting together ideas for our kitchen renovation, we knew that we wanted white cabinets with unlacquered brass hardware and marble countertops.  We want everything to patina and age in this house (though I will admit that Bryce does not love the "dots" that are coming first on the faucets).  The kitchen is suspiciously reminiscent of our last kitchen but we figured why reinvent the wheel if we already loved something?

We turned to a local cabinet maker to help with our design and build the cabinets, and we are thrilled with the final product.  My favorite thing of the whole process was getting to go and walk the workshop while our cabinets were in production.  I love having met the men and women who worked on our cabinets from start to finish!

Their facility is top notch.

As you can imagine, we are thrilled with our new kitchen but wouldn't you know that within months of them being installed, we noticed a faint, but most definitely there, red handprint on the refrigerator panel.  The culprit?  Harris.  Apparently, after working on homework with a red shading pencil he felt the need for a snack and had to use one hand to pull and the other to push!  We've tried everything to get it off but it won't budge.  The cabinet makers think it might need to be refinished!  I guess we got that patina earlier than expected :).

Hard to see but it's there!

Our Master Bathroom

Are you ready for picture overload?  Words cannot express how very much we are enjoying the bathroom.  It is such a peaceful, pretty place that we all find ourselves hanging out in it!  The heated floors help out with that too.  

The tub is one of my favorite things.  It is definitely the main focus in the room, and I've already enjoyed a number of sublime baths.  

With the exception of the tub, everything is lined up on either side of the bathroom.  We each have a vanity on opposite walls.  Bryce's vanity is kitchen cabinet height and mine is regular bathroom vanity height.  The countertops are  marble and our vanities are the same except that mine has the bow added on.  Oh, how I love the bow!

As you walk into the bathroom there is a small "dressing room" type area.  We continued the carpet from our bedroom into this area to give it a little bit of distinction from the rest of the bathroom.  The makeup vanity that Bryce gave me fits perfectly here!  Across from the vanity is a small closet.  I added beveled mirrors to the doors, which I love and is hugely convenient.  

Each of our vanities has a small shelf built in next to it.  I keep playing around with the objects on the shelves.

I found the strawberry cage chandelier on ebay.  I'm completely smitten with the scones above our vanities because I love that their shades look like regular pleated shades even though they are ceramic.  Isn't that clever?  We also have a schoolhouse light above the toilet.

Thanks for being patient with this many pictures of our bathroom.  I just couldn't seem to pare them down. The bathroom has also become the favorite hangout spot for Lily and Coco!

Farm Table + Chairs + Mason Jar Chandelier

I didn't intend for this to be "screened in porch week" on the blog but it has turned out that way.  Maybe because it didn't get out of the 20's yesterday and it's nice to dream of spending lazy, warm days on the porch.  I promise this will be it until the spring!

Even though the porch is not overly large, I have been determined to fit a sitting area around the fire and a table to eat our meals on.  In my mind both of these things were musts!  I knew that I wanted a long farm table but it was difficult to find a table that wasn't too large.  Most tables I found were very, very wide and we simply don't have room for that large of a table.  I was thrilled when I found this table at a local antique shop!  The legs of the table are reproductions but the wood top is from an old building/factory.  One of our rules for the new space is that we don't want to have to baby anything and this top fits the bill perfectly.  It's already got some "character" to it!

We purchased Tolix chairs to go around the table.  These chairs are so pretty and I love what clean lines they have!  These chairs have a lot going for them and that was a big factor in our choosing them.  We can pull the chairs indoors to use around our dining room table when we need more seating, they take up very little space and they easily stack.

I love our light fixture over the table.  It definitely adds some warmth and interest to the room!  And really, mason jars can serve just about any purpose!

The Screened In Porch

 I'm so excited to share photos of the screened in porch, it's finally done (here is the before)!  We were disappointed that it didn't get done in time to enjoy this fall, but at least it will be ready to go as soon as spring hits!

When planning the porch I was concerned that it would look like an afterthought or an insubstantial addition to the house.  I wanted it to look hefty and solid- like an extension of our home.  The carpenter who worked on the molding was able to achieve this with the woodwork and I'm very pleased.

The fireplace is my favorite thing.  It turned out to be such a focal point on the porch.  The stonework that the mason did far exceeded our expectations.

The floor is mahogany.  Apparently, it can take a beating and still look good!

The ceiling is white beadboard.

We are so excited that it is done and look forward to lots of time spent in the semi-outdoors!

The Shower

Our bathroom is this close to being done!  All that is left is painting, wallpaper install and some tweaks here or there!  Our shower door was installed on Monday and it looks great.  I love how the tiles, stone and marble all came together.  

House Paint Colors

You may remember our decision to restore the cedar shake and clapboard siding on our house.  It was really, really bad for a while, a long while, but it is now finally starting to get put back together!

One of the exciting things about it moving along is that we got to pick out new paint colors for the house.  I found the process of picking paint colors to be rather nerve wracking because I want to get it just right!  I want the house to be simple, pretty, classic, welcoming and warm.  Is that too much to ask?  We chose to go with gray for the house, white trim, black shutters and a red porch!

There are so many variations on the color gray!  I didn't want a taupe gray or a blue-gray or a green-gray but rather a warm true gray, and I think I found it in the Benjamin Moore historic house colors.  We are using two different grays for the top and bottom of the house but the difference is very subtle.  We are keeping our red porch but using a brighter, truer red.  Our shutters are already black and we are keeping with our white trim.  Of course, I couldn't seem to get a very true picture of the colors but hopefully you get the idea.

Bathroom Cabinets and Countertops

Our bathroom cabinets and counter tops have been installed and I absolutely love them!  Bryce and I each have our own vanity/sink area and from the beginning I knew that I wanted our vanities to be the same but with a feminine/masculine feel to them.  I had in mind using some sort of onlay and was thrilled when I found one I loved in the catalog of our cabinet maker.  It features a bow, of course!

Bryce's vanity is taller than mine (kitchen cabinet height) and has no onlay.  I'm really happy with the piece of marble that we picked out, the pictures really don't do it justice!

We also had an outlet put in the back of my cabinet, behind a drawer that will hold my hair dryer and such.