Finished Kitchen

The kitchen is now complete!


There were a few glitches with a couple of things along the way. I think they were partially due to our inexperience coupled with some miscommunication between the designer, kitchen builder, the home builder, and ourselves.

The last 4 weeks before closing we were out of town several times for work so that made it difficult as well, as we weren't always on site as things were happening.

In the end we decided to just go with how it turned out instead of delaying closing to go back and change anything.

Nevertheless, it's a beautiful kitchen. My favourite part is the island. I love it so much that sometimes I wish we had done the whole kitchen in the dark stained maple. But I suppose if we had, the island would no longer stand out as a focal point.

Cooking in this kitchen is a dream. After unpacking every kitchen related item from our old house I still have empty cupboard space. And I had a lot of stuff in our basement, including seasonal and decorative serving ware, as well as several appliances such as our bread machine, large roaster, slow cooker, rice machine, blender(s), food processor, electric grill/griddler, deep fryer, etc.

I'm looking forward to many years ahead of making lots of good food and memories in this kitchen. After all, it's where I will be spending about 50% of my time every day.

House Update: Week of June 20-26

Some pictures from the week of June 20-26. The wire shelves were installed in all closets. The stairs and railing is complete.

We have decided to leave off the carpet runner as the stained oak is so beautiful the way it is.

House Update: Week of June 13-19

Some photos from the week (June 13-19):

Bathroom (Clara)

Just a couple of pictures of Clara in our bathroom...

She and Nathan LOVE to go see the new house and run around in the open spaces.

Now that the house is getting closer to finishing, it's pretty safe for them to explore now, as there aren't as many hazards as were present a couple of months ago (loose nails, open stairways, etc.)

Its hard to believe we close two weeks from tomorrow. Our builder actually asked us if we would like to move the closing date up to June 25, as the house would be ready then. We declined, as we will be out of town in Newfoundland until the 28th. But we were pretty impressed that he asked nonetheless.

Countertops

We had some of our counter tops installed on Monday. The powder room, ensuite, and kitchen are all done, as are the coordinating sinks.

The rest of the counters are scheduled to go in at the end of this week.

More Flooring

The hardwood has been completed on the rest of the main floor (office, study, foyer).

For the main room in the basement we chose a cork flooring. We thought this was a good compromise since I didn't want carpet and Scott isn't a big fan of laminate.

Cork is naturally warm and insulating, durable, absorbs sound, and looks cool. It's basically great in every way except that it's a little pricey, so it was an upgrade above our inexpensive carpet allowance.

I love how it turned out though. You can really see the sawdust in these photos:

Fireplace & Surround

One of my favourite places in the house is our fireplace & built in surround. Our builder has used this same setup or similar in several of his homes. He designed this into our floor plan from the beginning and I think it has turned out really well.

Down in the basement, we opted to put the fireplace in the corner to make room for Scott's media system and the windows, and just so that it would look a little different.

Here are some pictures of the various stages: