The Kitchen is Finished… Finally!

OMG! It’s finally done! Really! It’s more than a year later than we wanted, but I am grateful to say that I have finally finished our kitchen and it is spectacular! It has been sitting at the 98% completion mark since this past spring, but we finally managed to get the last of it done and, for the moment, we can relax.

Continue Reading…

Cold Hard (Beautiful) Reality — Progress Report #11

Oh Yeah! This is our new reality and it is Cold, Hard, and Beautiful! It’s Marble Countertop Reveal Time!

Our kitchen may still be unfinished, but ten days after the second marble install was finished, I find myself in awe every time I walk into our kitchen. I also find myself freaking out about spilling wine, or tomato sauce, or lemon juice, or any other threat known to honed marble… But rest assured, it will be fine.

Continue Reading…

Unfinished but Functional… Finally! -– Progress Report #10

The countertops are in! And they are AMAZING!….. But you will have to wait a little bit more for the full reveal… Later this week, I will be posting a full marble countertop and backsplash reveal…. And it will be FABULOUS! In the meantime, let me catch you up on our now still unfinished, but finally functional kitchen! This is huge! After 130 days (a third of a year!) without running water in our kitchen, we got hooked up this past week. And after sealing our countertops on Saturday, we began to move things into our kitchen on Sunday, including the unpacking of some of my daily dinnerware which has been boxed up since January of 2014 when I packed up my Hell’s Kitchen apartment.

Continue Reading…

The Ta-Done and the To-Do — Progress Report #9

[Photo: While waiting for our train back to New York City after approving our slab of marble, we took in the beautiful scenery of Edison, New Jersey.]

Holy crap! I just realized I haven’t done a post since May 3rd! That would be three weeks in which I am confident you have been doing nothing but checking the internets on the hour for an update on our kitchen… Or maybe you have a life and cannot be bothered checking for updates but you still want to know about new stuff. There is a solution, plug, plug…. In the left column you should (if you haven’t done so already) sign up for email notifications of new posts. (I promise you will never receive unsolicited spam from me, nor will I ever share your email address, ever.) End of plug. OK, so it has been three weeks, and I can say that things did happen! Actually a lot happened, just not all related to our kitchen. Progress has felt like it is moving at a snails pace, but it is still progress nonetheless.

Continue Reading…

Cabinets and Countertops Finalized–Finally! (Part II of The Final Kitchen Plans Series)

This is the second post in my series The Final Kitchen Plans. In my last post, I talked about how our final plans evolved from initial ideas and plans into using materials we had either never considered or previously just written off. In my first post, I kicked off this series with a high level outline of our finalized materials and space plans, I recapped our very exciting flooring decision from previous week, and then went on to reveal that we are not going to go with subway tile, but instead will be installing wide plank beadboard as wainscoting around the entire room. In Part II, it’s all about cabinets and countertops!

Continue Reading…

Detail Matters – Salvaging an End Table Fail

Detail MattersWhen it comes to finding furniture and lighting for our apartment, I am always trying to strike a balance of using pieces which are readily available mixed in with new and vintage pieces you won’t find at your local store. If it is going to come from a mass marketer, it will nearly always come from

Continue Reading…

Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen…. Part III – Countertops; Black or White?

[Photo: This is one of the more beautiful kitchen combos I have run across in my countless hours of obsessing and planning our new kitchen. Source: Remodelista]

In my last post, I went into great detail about how compromise won when it came to figuring out what we are going to do for our cabinets. I am completely in love with the shaker cabinets which are commonly available in the UK, but are not easily attainable in the good old boring US of A. But, in the end, I think I have a solution we can be happy with

Continue Reading…