I have many special gifts in life- consistently blogging is clearly not among them.  With my usual work load, lots of stuff in my personal life and designing my own home, it hasn’t left a lot of time to blog.  But a ton has happened since my last entry!

We have now closed on our home and we are well under way on the renovation!

Let’s start with the kitchen.  My dreams of removing the wall separating the living room were quickly dashed when we opened the wall and discovered ALLLL the pipes.  Like, literally every water, waste and vent line of the whole house goes through that wall (and while it isn’t load bearing, the contractor felt that the house could use a little extra support).  So, after a few moments of our pity party, we came up with a really nice plan B.  There is a 6′ section that only has two thin water supply lines and one vent line.  We are rerouting those three pieces to the side of the wall where all the other stuff is, which will allow us a 6’x6′ “window” into the living/dining room.  This will allow us to interact with each other and our guests and will let tons of light in.  We are also minimizing the laundry closet to make the stair landing feel a bit more gracious.  I think it will be beautiful and bright, and will still give us lots of storage.

I made some changes to the downstairs guest bathroom as well.  As with all design projects, there comes a point where you have to cut some costs.  Renovating an entire house is really, really expensive!  So, I had to majorly simplify EVERY room in the house.  There were a few things I completely splurged on- converting our wood burning fireplace to a gas fireplace (with remote control) and the gorgeous marble mosaic going on it, excellent appliances, a super cool kitchen back splash and a special dining room chandelier.  But many of the spaces needed to be value engineered.  For the guest bathroom, I had selected an encaustic cement tile that was blue with a pretty white pattern on it.  While it is a small room, the material cost and labor to install that tile, as well as to maintain it, was more than I felt necessary.  I found a porcelain version of it in black and white that I thought was very fun and because it is porcelain, it is much easier to install and much more affordable.  See below for the new version!  I also changed the vanity, because we have such a shallow space, I needed to do a very thin vanity and this one will fit well and will still clear the door casing.  It will provide a little storage for our guests too so they can unpack and get comfortable.

More updates coming soon!