We have our kitchen planned out! Our cabinet doors are Formica, with a gray geometric-patterned lower door (I don’t have a good picture but I’ll post one when I get it) and white uppers. We’re having a hard time deciding on the countertops, though. We both loved this one:

Black Marinace

We decided it’s too much for the kitchen. If we can get a small piece we’ll use it for the powder room counter.

We want something in the gray/black/white family, with waves rather than speckles. We’ve found these two:

Astryx

Mystic Black

…and we’re trying to get a hold of something like these:

Silver Waves

Silver Paradiso

Especially the Silver Paradiso. But we’re having a hard time finding it!

This is the final kitchen layout:

The cabinets over the oven between the two windows (surrounding the microwave) are going to be brushed stainless steel with frosted glass.

Tell me what you think of it! We can’t wait until it’s in.

We’re in the process of ordering our kitchen! I’ll put up pictures when we have the layout, cabinets and counters finalized. We’re doing a two-tone kitchen with gray lower cabinets and white uppers.

Right now one of the faucets I’m considering is on sale and I want to decide on those ASAP.

This is the sink we’ve picked:

Elkay 281610 undermount sink

And these are the faucets we’re considering:

Grohe Ladylux faucet

Hansgrohe Talis C faucet

The Grohe Ladylux is selling for a great price, but it’s an older version and doesn’t lock into spray mode (if I want to use the sprayer I need to hold down the button). There’s a newer model that does lock into spray mode but it’s more expensive. The Hansgrohe Talis C does have a locking spray mode.

This is the soap dispenser that I like and matches both faucets:

Grohe Timeless soap dispenser

I like them both! The Ladylux is a better deal but I think I like the Talis C better. What do you think?

We’ve started ripping out the kitchen! So much fun! Check it out:

Everything’s been moved into the playroom (sorry, no good “before” pictures of the playroom, but here it is so you can get an idea!):

The popcorn is coming down from the ceilings too. Our wonderful handyman Juan sprayed it and scraped it… and found Sheetrock that looks brand new underneath! It’s amazing because that popcorn’s been there for more than 40 years. I guess it’s good for something!

More demo pictures to come as more gets done. The destruction phase is fun and quick, so I’ll have more pictures soon!

Our current apartment is too small to set up the baby’s crib anywhere, so she’s still sleeping in the Pack ‘n Play. But I ordered the bedding set for her crib so that we can pick out carpet and paint for her room. It just arrived and it is just precious! This is it:

Forgive my nonexistent architectural and artistic skills, I’m doing my best here!

The basic layout of our house (not to scale) looks like this:

Downstairs:We’re making the following changes:

Existing living room will become the formal living and dining room.

• Features of the living room:
  • Beautiful cathedral ceilings
  • Brick fireplace
  • Sunken portion (very small)
  • Big windows at each end (lots of light)
  • Open to foyer with railing around sunken portion
• Our plans:
  • Fill in sunken portion (too small to be of any use, though our son wants to use it as a ball pit!)
  • Add wall with coat closet in place of railing (this will make the foyer smaller but it’s worth it!)
  • Remove carpet and lay wide, dark planks
  • Remove popcorn ceiling (ugh!)
  • Add spotlights all along ceiling
  • Add bookshelves on either side of the front window

Kitchen:

This is a biggie. We’re taking down the partial wall that separates the kitchen and breakfast area to create one long galley kitchen, moving the doorway to the kitchen so that it is parallel to the front door (with a pocket door to hide a messy kitchen if we need to!), and putting in all new cabinetry, flooring, and counters. I’ll be able to explain better when I post pictures!

We’re also planning on pushing the laundry room into the garage for a bigger eating area (there is currently a sliding door in the kitchen next to the mudroom – that area will serve as our breakfast room). I’ll lose out on a nice big laundry room but I’d rather have a roomier kitchen!

Family room:

This will be our playroom. We’re adding a toy closet under the stairs in Harry Potter-esque fashion. This room will also double as an office – not ideal, but we only have so much space…

Garage:

The garage is staying as-is (maybe with added shelving). Most people with the same model have converted the garage into extra living space but my husband NEEDS his garage, so it’s staying! Our “someday” plans include an extension on the garage so that we can create more downstairs and upstairs space.

Upstairs:

Again, this is not accurately scaled but you get the idea.

We’re not doing any major changes up here, mostly cosmetic and closets.

• Adding bookshelves in the hallway along the wall of the baby’s room
• Adding linen closet at the end of the hall between the two bedrooms
• Adding closet in main bathroom
• Removing popcorn ceilings
• Changing horrible light fixtures (and possibly medicine cabinets) in master bath
• Replacing closet doors in all bedrooms
• Replacing shaky stair rail that is not up to code and scares the wits out of me
• Painting and carpeting

So those are our plans for now! I’ll post pictures as soon as I can get over there – we’re having record-breaking low temps today and I don’t want to take the baby out. Stay tuned!