Sunday, January 26, 2014

Kitchen Panorama, Coffee Tables, and Holidays

People who know me know that I'm a nerd. While in some settings I try to hide it, I never actually succeed for long. But sometimes my nerd spills over and manifests in funny ways. This week that was one of those times, where I felt like I had all these thoughts about how I want our new house to look but they were all scattered. So I decided to draw what I want my kitchen to look like.
So I got out my daughter's drawing paper and a pencil, and started remembering the perspective rules my art teacher taught me in 6th grade. It's fairly large; I didn't crop the laptop out of this picture on purpose so you could see that it's about 14 inches tall and 4 feet wide (I'm estimating; I didn't measure). 
I haven't inked it all yet, here is the hearth. I haven't inked it because I'm not perfectly satisfied with it. Maybe a mantel? We want a wood stove, and you can see our "Command Center" in the background. It was a good exercise for this wall especially, because we realized we could cut into the bottom of our pantry for the firewood storage and we could cut into the middle very slightly for a cubby for phone charging, mail sorting, etc. Behind that door is a bathroom. The tiles on the bottom sides of the hearth are dragons from Earth Song tiles (found toward the bottom of the page at this link) and the hearth is brick. 
This is the kitchen island, with a door to the outside (deck?) on the back kitchen wall. We're thinking ivory subway tile for a backsplash, lighter wood cupboards, and just laminate countertop. I don't mind laminate and have always had it. So I just don't see a good reason at this point to spring for quartz or granite. If you've been in our current kitchen, you will think this looks a lot like it!
For a backsplash, I like Earth Song Tile's tree of life tile (found toward the middle of this page). We can pick whatever glaze we want, and we're still debating that. I just really want a kitchen that in 10 years someone doesn't walk into and say, "Oh, that kitchen is so 2014". It seems like the current trend is white cabinets, black granite countertops, vertical multi-tone grays narrow glass tile backsplashes, and stainless steel appliances. Although the stainless appliances have been around for a while. 
  I know they are going to look at me like I am out of my mind, but I fully intend to walk into a kitchen cabinet store, unroll my drawing, and say, "I want THIS."

In less obsessive compulsive news, we had some holidays recently. My stepdad helped us pick out the right cedar tree on Thanksgiving day, and I have to say this was the nicest tree we've had. Maybe because Ryan didn't just wander out there on his own and grab the first tree he saw. :-)

As a case in point and a study in contrast, here is our 2010 tree:
Even now I am laughing at how completely ridiculous that tree is. 

Also as part of the holidays, we found and refinished some coffee tables for my sister-in-law. Here they are before (fresh from Goodwill!)...:

...and after at her house. We distressed them a bit, resealed the wood with polyurethane, and made the top center chalkboard paint (she has two girls age 4 and 2). They are quite sturdy and I like how they turned out. 

Then we headed to visit my dad for Christmas and to go to Lake Tahoe to see my brother get married. I don't have official wedding pics yet, but this is (apparently) the one picture I took of H as a flower girl. She did a great job and I didn't take many pictures because the photographer seemed to be taking many. 

Both kids were fairly enamored with the whole plane thing, here Z is pointing at our plane. Yes, his onesie says "Daddy's co-pilot" because he already owned that onesie and I simply could not resist. 
H checked out our plane, although was also interested in the other young passengers sitting next to her.

Z is so far a typical Boy, loving trucks and electronics. Here he is at my dad's (who's house is not so very toddler proof although it's not bad) holding a Playstation 3 controller and fiddling with the myriad of black electronic boxes available under the TV. It was Z's bliss.

H continues to like to be outside, even when weather is dismal. Here she is with our first lamb of the season (who is also our first bottle lamb. Stupid ewe. She lost her baby and Ryan didn't find it until a half hour later, when she had a second one and decided the first one wasn't hers. Five days later she is still the only ewe to lamb and we have a bottle lamb). The are both bouncing up and down, with H imitating the lamb. 

Today we had someone looking at our house for a second time (hurray!) but that happened during the kids' nap time. So for what we think is the first time ever, H fell asleep on the couch. She was watching The Incredibles and we came into the living room to see her all curled up. 
Good night!