Home Update ~ Kitchen and such

The kitchen cabinets have arrived!  They are sitting in the living room!

Some blew over in the wind, so we opened a couple of boxes to check for damage; and they are prettier than I imagined!  Just simple white wood cabinets.  So excited!

 We hope to order our kitchen backsplash tile this week!  It's a light blue lantern shape, shown here with the quartz counter tops we have ordered.  It's hard to tell, but it's gray and white with just a splash of gold.  I never would have picked it from a small sample, but the huge display in Lowe's in Abingdon has it; so I could see how the whole area would look.  And I loved the character.  The counters were on sale when we bought the cabinets on sale, so we are happy we got those locked in before prices went way up again!

All three bath vanities have finally been delivered!  The top white one will go downstairs to replace the one in the only bathroom on the main floor.  I loved the white apron sinks and am still deciding on the flooring, tile, etc.  The good thing is this vanity will go with everything!  The second one is slate blue for Sam's bathroom upstairs.  It was on backorder forever but showed up not long ago on sale, so we ordered it!  He really likes it and will have it with a tub/shower in his bathroom.  The bottom one was shipped from California and dropped in the driveway.  My sister coordinated my brother, father, brother-in-law, nephews (in-laws too!) and Pete to slide it up the driveway with a dump truck and chain to the garage.  We opened the box to check on its condition, and I found the color to be prettier than I thought!  I am not a designer, but I know I really like blue and white and then can add color in.  So we are happy to finally have all of these delivered and in the garage as of Thursday!  Some have gone way up in price, so we are happy with the timing of these purchases too!

I went ahead and purchased the two faucets for my vanity - while on sale!  I still have to decide on the other two ~ after I decide on a color.  I read where it's okay to mix two or more metals ~ which is good, because I'm trying to pick things that look nice but don't always know which color goes with what!  I still don't have lights or mirrors picked out for the vanities, but that's where Pinterest can really be helpful to me!  It gives me ideas, and I can see what I like and maybe don't!  My brother told me that people don't come to my house to see if everything matches, and that makes making decisions a little easier ~ especially in remodeling a house and having to add some new things while trying to keep the good character that's already there.

Not only is our living room full of kitchen cabinets, but it's full of boxes of lights too ~ which have now been labeled with a Sharpie so we won't forget which one goes where!  We chose very simple lights to brighten up spaces that are full of pretty but dark wood.  I was able to get the glass in two different kinds in the schoolhouse lights and also able to get a dark blue base for Sam's room ~ just to have something different.  I've tried to pick things I like that we won't get tired of!  And, of course, they were all on sale over Thanksgiving weekend!  

When we built our new house many years ago near Boone, my major splurge was granite counter tops.  I picked out a nice sink and faucet, but the counter tops were huge!  This time, I felt like my sink and faucet were splurges!  However, like everything else, we bought them with the Thanksgiving sales; and I am so excited about the bridge faucet and farm/apron sink (this isn't the exact one, but it's close!).  I can't wait to be at the sink looking out a fresh new window to the outside!

We met our neighbor the other day.  He drove his truck right up to the gate at the end of our driveway that opens to his land.  He doesn't live next door but rents that house.  The house we bought belonged to his aunt, and he was the executor of her estate (because her son, his cousin, had died a few years before she did).  Pete got to talk to him a little more, because I saw Sarah leaving the house and had to get her before she fell!  His dog's name is Rowdy, and he uses the farm land as a feeding area for cattle.  The farm to the side of our house is owned by another family, and we have not met them - but my dad has when he was mowing!  It was pretty neat to get a little history of the house and find out his grandfather put the brick on in the 40's.  We were happy to meet him, and we hope he likes that we are loving the house that has always been in his family.

Thanks for reading!  This is my "journal" of our house renovations!  I can't wait to see all of this stuff in place!  Really, I can't wait!  We are excited to keep on working!