The Floor That Made Our Hearts Sing

As we get closer and closer to finally starting our kitchen renovation after many, many, many delays, we are finding that there has been an unexpected benefit to having postponed our renovation for so long. That unexpected benefit is that with each delay comes continued insight to plan as it relates to materials resulting in a much more refined final look which we would never have done had we just gone with our initial plans.

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Video Tour, Recap, and Update

In August of last year, within two hours after leaving our closing on our apartment with keys in hand, I created a walk-through video tour of our apartment [view last years video here]. I wanted to document our apartment before we made a single change as a way to look back and remember where we started.

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Rethinking the Kitchen

[Photo: This hits many notes of my dream kitchen, including in-frame cabinets painted in beautiful shade of what looks to be Farrow & Ball Stiffkey blue. Source: House to Home – UK]

 

This past spring and summer I posted about my dreams and desires for what would be my perfect kitchen and my frustration about how my perfect kitchen is really only available to folks who live in the United Kingdom.

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One Year and a Lot of Change

Last week marked a one year and a lot of change since Yoav and I sat down at a table with a group of disparate people, all with one common interest of varying degrees. Our mission, transferring the ownership of our apartment from the sellers to us, the buyers (or really our bank). Like most everything in New York City, nothing can be simple or cheap.

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Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen…. Part IV – Floored and Walled

[Mott’s Modern Plumbing Catalog from 1910. This would have certainly been a fancy kitchen in 1910, but it is still quite utilitarian compared to the “Old World” style kitchens we see today. Image: NYPL]

Kitchen floors and walls….. Using common tile and elevating it to classy and timeless.

[Update at bottom] As the plans for our kitchen renovation are forming and the anticipated start date of August (October/November-ish) (January-February 2016) is getting closer,

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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

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Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen…. Part II – Cabinets and Compromise

[Image: Stiffkey Blue is named after the village near north Norfolk beach (UK) where the mud, along with the cockles, is this very particular blue hue.]

You say “Stiffkey”, “I’ll say Stewkey”. . .

Those close to me know that I have been obsessing over our kitchen design for months, and months, and months, and…. you get the idea. And in doing so, I have discovered that what I thought I liked three months ago may not be what I like today. As I have delved deeper and deeper into the possibilities of what we can do, I have made surprising discoveries about my taste and desires for the new kitchen.

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Devastated, Just Devastated…

Why America? Why????? Why?????

Why must so many American’s be so f*cking boring when it comes to style and design?  Why is our country always ten years behind Europe before finally adopting new ideas?

Last fall when we were at Ikea Elizabeth to order a kitchen for both the rental and for us, we found out they were discontinuing Akurum, the cabinet system they have sold in North America for the past 20 years and introducing a new system in February of this year

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I’m Still Here… And There is More to Come…

Lest you think I have abandoned my new blog, rest assured, I have not.

Life has just been busy…. I mean like extremely busy. I have been too focused on other things to sit down and write. But I have several posts started, and there is much more to come… In the meantime, I am going to post a few teaser photos to keep you interested (I hope).

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