Face Lift!!

Nothing like a cabinet reface and granite delivery to brighten our day -- and house. We are so happy with how everything is coming together and highly recommend Affordable Refacing for cabinet refacing and Stone One in Methuen for granite and tile. Tiasha from Stone One has been great to work with, and the granite selection is phenomenal...as you can see for yourself! The granite for the kitchen island will arrive once the island is installed...which is the same time the granite (we actually went quartz) for the master bath will be delivered.
Here's a view from the dining room. New floors arrive in the next week or two and once the plastering/skim coating is finished, this will look so much better. Affordable Refacing is coming back in a couple weeks to build the cabinet above the fridge. It will be a 36-inch wide cabinet (same width as our fridge), which we barely have room for, but Black Tie Property is going to add some wood "padding" and trim to make sure the fridge and cabinet aren't hanging into our hallway.

Here is a view from the breezeway/den doorway. They will also be coming back to finish the cabinets above the microwave they had to shorten/build. There actually was no microwave in the old Phelps' kitchen so we opted for a microwave/venting hood combo. Distance between microwave and stove should be 18 inches, hence the shortening of the cabinets:

This is the bank of drawers to the right of where the stove will be. Love the polished nickel Gilmore pulls from Restoration Hardware:

We actually thought we wouldn't like the backsplash we originally purchased and, instead, were considering opting for something more colorful with blues, greens, etc. Once everything was installed, the original backsplash looked quite good in our opinion. Since the granite is more grey than we rememebered (not complaining, just observing), it serves as a nice contrast and still offers the "marble look" we really like. The blue/green backsplash option that we THOUGHT we would like more really didn't go at all. Just goes to show - trust your gut!


And only because we promised...

And on the topic of action photos, here's Stone One installing the granite.

They mixed up a "glue" of some sort that matched the grey in the granite perfectly. The seams are truly not noticeable. As fun as yesterday was, it was still rather stressful because I had to make a lot of random decisions. How'd I do?
1. Do you want faucet and soap dispenser on right or left? (I chose right for faucet, left for soap dispenser?)
2. Do you want a pull on the "fake drawer" below the sink (I said no because it isn't a tilt or anything and it might be confusing to people who don't know that.)
3. Which way do you want the cabinets to open? (This seems obvious but, when you're in our kitchen, you'll see that we didn't do what's most common these days for the two cabinets to the left and right of sink. We chose to do what the Phelps' did and have two left cabinets and two right cabinets, rather than two sets of right/left. Hard to explain...
There were other questions but the level of minutia is not worth getting into. Those were the ones that I had to "phone a friend" (i.e., my husband) for input. He, of course, chose left side for faucet, yes for pull under the sink and "center open" for the cabinets...but soon came around. It's all give and take. And he's getting his carpeted bedrooms.

Polling the Audience: White or Antique White Cabinets?

It has been awhile since we've posted. Our lack of commentary is in no way indicative of lack of progress. Quite the contrary, in fact! It's more that we've been blown away by progress to the point that we don't know what to focus our posts on and, more accurately, we've been (read: I've been) paralyzed by indecision to the point where I can't decide if I even want to get others to weigh in or not. It's a sickness, really.

The decision that has caused me the most angst thus far has been cabinet color (master bathroom layout and lighting fixtures/placement are a close second). As you know we are getting our cabinets refaced by an awesome company called Affordable Refacing. (God love Shawn, the owner, for putting up with me.) We are to decide between white and antique white. First, we chose white because I love the look of the all-white cararra marble kitchens. Very clean, very chic, very en vogue. But then we chose antique white because I feared the white would be to stark/sterile. But is the antique white too creamy? I flip flop daily and thought that I'd use a lifeline and poll the audience.

Below is a photo of the two color options. We're going with the door style on the left no matter what.


As a reminder, here's our backsplash and granite.


Because I am a big loser, I took the liberty of creating a PowerPoint slide that puts all of the pieces together. Here's a screenshot of it. The two cabinets on the left are antique white and the two on the right are white white.


So which color?

Shawn is so awesome that he actually told me he could custom spray each of the cabinets ANY Sherwin Williams white that I liked, but, before I put him and his guys through that, I want to make sure I can't live with one of these choices. (Because if I go with that option, you do realize there are about 100 Sherwin William whites!)

I'm not cut out for this...

Suggestions welcome :)

Lights, camera...

This was our first weekend away from Salt Wall Lane since we moved. We went up to Lake Winnipesauke to visit Sarah and Ramin Taheri and the Bruson family. It was wonderful to get away from all the stress of the house and chill on a boat on the lake on a gorgeous New England summer day. Chris even caught a fish!

But, fear not, Salt Wall was still on the mind. Even before we got up to the lake, we made a stop at the homestead to see that Kel had already ripped off almost all of the shingles on the front of the house in preparation for the building/siding job that commenced THIS MORNING! That’s right, as I type, the “raising of the roof” is taking place.

We needed to pull the shingles off so we can accommodate new windows on the first floor in the front of the house when we put the new vinyl siding on. We only need to do this to the front of the house because we're only replacing the first floor windows in the front.

After snapping a photo of the shingle-less house (which you'll see in our next post), we headed north to tax-free New Hampshire, stopping along the way at Stone One in Methuen, Mass. where we're getting our granite and tile so Chris could give the "stamp of approval" on the tiles I picked out for the guest bathroom.



Score! He liked them.

The rest of the day was renovation-free, though we did talk shop with the Taheris who are going through the same type of project with their new house in Capitol Hill.

On Sunday, we were trying to kill time before meeting the Mlinar family for breakfast at Sunshine & Pa's in Meredith, NH. Randomly and conveniently, Amanda, Gavin and Halsey were up at Lake Winnepesauke this week, as well, so we were lucky to have the chance to meet up with them before we all departed. As any home renovator would know, Lowes and Home Depot are two of the only places open for business at 6:30am, which was around the time the Taheris left us for the airport. We took full advantage of our small pocket of time and picked out some cool indoor/outdoor fans for the porch. We plan to have two of them on our wraparound.

Unfortunately (or fortunately as you'll learn), it was "donkey day" at the Lowes in Meredith and they couldn't find my account number and phones were down and we were about to be late for brekkie. We pulled the ripcord and decided we'd hit up another Lowes before crossing the border to Taxachusetts.

We had a field day at the Lowes in Tilton, NH.

Maybe it was the slight hangover or egg-induced food coma, but we were (read: I was) uncharacteristically decisive.

We grabbed our fans and then spent some time in Lighting.

A lot of time.

"I'm so excited about our pendant lights!" Chris just exclaimed as I write this blog on my blackberry, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 93 South.




It is true - we found and somehow agreed on pendant lights at Lowes. It is a type that is new to Lowes so maybe that's why we'd never seen them before. We'd actually found and almost purchased similar pendant lights online for $160 a piece. The Restoration Hardware ones I loved were upwards of $450 each! These were such a steal that we got three. We can always return one if we only use two, though I read somewhere that "there's something about the number three when it comes to pendant lights." (I think 3 is a good number for a lot of things when it comes to decor/design, btw.)

We didn't stop at pendant lights.

We found wall sconces for our master...






...and guest bathrooms.




I read (and the awesome bathroom designer I met with on Friday confirmed this - more on bathroom design in a future post) that light strips over vanity/medicine cabinet mirrors are the dated way of lighting a bathroom. Sconces on either side of the mirror are a preferable, esp for makeup application, and more flattering. The master bath light fixtures are chrome and align well with the 1920s vintage luxury look we're going for. The brushed nickel fixtures will be great for our New England cottage-style guest bath.

We also got a flush ceiling mount light for the upstairs hallway...

...and black motion censor outdoor sconces for either side of the garage door.
That was it for lighting.

We were similarly decisive in the bathroom section and purchased our faucet and shower head/valve set for the guest bathroom. We went a classic/traditional Moen brushed nickel matching set.




While we were in the faucet aisle, we decided to buy our kitchen faucet. To match the polished nickel pendant lights, we got a chrome Delta model that looked traditional yet sleek and had the features we cared most about: one handle for hot/cold, matching soap dispenser, a button you press that serves as a toggle between a concentrated stream (think: filling up a glass of water) and a rain-like stream (think: doing dishes), and good warranty. We also really like my mom's Delta faucet.

Last but not least: Chris did some in-store research on disposals and bought an In-Sinkerater "Evolution Premier." He was pleased with the reviews, particularly those commending the disposal for purring like a kitten and chomping like a beaver. (His words.)


Before heading to checkout, we strolled down the tile aisle and found two final candidates for the powder room, though decided we'd table that decision.

Debbie, the head cashier, was a dream. She looked up my credit card number with no problem, honored a 10% off coupon that we didn't even have, and gave us 6 months of 0% APR.

Our savvy shopping saved us $110 (coupon) plus another $78 in avoided state sales tax. If we can find a way to convince the state of NH that the energy-saving electrical fixtures we purchased (8 total), we can get an $80 rebate.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bruson, thank you for allowing us to stay at your lovely lake house in Gilford, NH. Can we please borrow your address for a rebate form? We promise these fixtures will be installed there! Your (cheap) friends, the Paynes.