First Design Choices

There is no rest for the weary! After buying our house last week on Tuesday, we immediately hit the ground running!

Our builder, Keith reached out to me on Wednesday morning and said we needed to go pick out cabinets that day if possible because the estimated arrival was approximately 8 weeks, so we need to order quickly! We got an appointment scheduled for later that afternoon, and I headed over to the cabinet company.

I saw some cabinets in another house Keith is building and LOVED the color! My heart had been set on white cabinets for the last 7 years, but I was crushing on that barn-wood gray when I saw it. So, James came up with the fabulous idea of doing white around the perimeter of the kitchen and doing the island in barn-wood! Best of both worlds! I'm also carrying the barn-wood color throughout the house in all the bathrooms and will do white in the laundry room. I really wanted black pulls & knobs, but holy moly, those things were triple the budget I was given. So I opted to go with Satin Nickel for all, since that is an easy switch later on.

Keith's wife Wanda does all his house designs, so she brought by some granite samples that she had on hand for me to look at, and I immediately fell in love with this one! I love the combination of white and taupe!

Thursday, was mirror day! You can read more about that here, but I finally got to go pick them up after waiting for three years!

Friday was filled stone, sinks, and tiles!

When we got to the stone company, there were rows upon rows of stone slabs! I ended up going with a totally different style of stone than I thought I would, but I am thrilled with the choice. We chose a beautiful granite for the kitchen counters called Ipanema. The slab that I chose is primarily white and taupe, with hints of minty blue-green, and touches of deep ruby that looks almost like a plum! It's simply beautiful! I can't wait to see it paired with the cabinetry!

For all of the bathrooms, I wanted to keep the design cohesive, so I went with quartz for all. I did a beautiful color called "White Lace" for the master bath & powder room. In the kids' bathroom, I went with a color called "Pebble Beach".

Next, we drove over to the tile store to choose all the tile accents for the house!!! We were choosing for the bathrooms, laundry room, and kitchen backsplash.

I kept the design in the kids' bathroom simple and went with a marbled 5-inch honeycomb tile for their floors. I think that will be beautiful with the rest of the accents we've chosen for that space! For the master bath room, we chose a brushed cream tile with gray veining, pale gray subway tiles for the shower / tub surround, and the basin of the shower will be 2-inch tiles in the same pattern as the main flooring.

Then, we chose for the backsplash. I found a leaf-pattern that I absolutely loved! They came in a soft minty blue-green & soft taupe, but they ended up being nixed from the list because glass tiles were 4 times the cost of ceramics. That was not necessarily a priority for me, so I opted to go with my first choice... a beautiful taupe quatrefoil tile! The backsplash paired SO WELL with the countertops and cabinetry! Now, I can't wait to see it all put together!

Lastly, we chose tiles for the laundry room! Those you'll have to wait to see because I got so excited that I forgot to take a photo! For this room, we chose a soft sand color damask-style patterned tile! Normally, I wouldn't be excited about laundry, but I suspect that we will thoroughly enjoy doing this chore once that room is finished!

Next Adventure: In about 10 days, we'll pick out our lights & stone for the fireplace.

The Heath Dairy farmhouse that we loved had lots of white, taupe, and natural wood tones, so we've decided to carry that design through our new home! I love classic styles and tend to not follow what's trendy. I like homes that are simple & elegant, yet feel cozy enough that when you come in, you feel like you are right at home.

I can't wait to share more with you as we go along! I hope sharing this inspires and encourages you in your next design project!

• Kimberly •