House Update: Floors

Are you sick of these little updates?  I can't help myself, I'm just so excited.  The floors are in and stained and beautiful!  It is definitely not close to being finished but I can start to see the vision come to life and so far I am liking it.  Can't wait till we move back in - with our new baby!

The kitchen/family room space has under gone a huge transformation  but it is mostly architectural and not as much design.  Taking out the old laundry room and opening up these two spaces is the greatest thing that came from flooding my house.  I still wish that day/weekend never happened but this is a pretty great perk that came from it.  The actual kitchen wasn't touched by water (boo!) so the cabinets, appliances and counters are staying but we were able to take out the kitchen desk which was  located on the right side of this picture and expand that space to add half a wall of cabinets.  Of course it will look different from the rest of the kitchen but hopefully in a good way.  Next to that is a very large pantry which my kitchen before was completely missing.  Here is a little sneak peek at the materials I chose for this space.

The walls throughout the kitchen and family room are getting painted a light grey.  The built-ins around the fireplace are getting painted a creamy white.  Now that we have wood floors I ordered a large rug to add some color and will fill the rest of the space in with all our original furniture.  

The new cabinets next to the new pantry will get simple white cabinets with glass doors for the uppers and dark butcher block counters.  I am most excited though about the cement tiles I chose for the backsplash.  I kept ALL my other material choices super affordable and economical so that I could splurge on these for the kitchen and laundry room.  And lastly, there will be french doors on the pantry - just need to pick those out.  

Here is a view of the full kitchen with my orange cabinets.  Once we are settled back in the house and figure out the rhythm of life with a newborn and three kids I think my first project will be painting those cabinets.......I think.  

Cream cabinets just might look funny with yellow appliances....and those are not changing anytime soon.  Ok, yellow may be an exaggeration but once the cabinets are cream they will really look yellow!

We can't forget about the brand new laundry/mudroom.  Since we took out the entire laundry room and hall closet we had to move these somewhere so my wonderful hubby gave me more than half of his large office.  In order to work the doorways and make everything flow right we also had to bump into the garage a few feet for an extended entrance.

When you enter in through the garage the laundry mudroom is directly on your left.  And here is also a view of the hallway to the garage and laundry/mudroom with the family room on the left and the pantry on the right.  To save space and avoid so many doors opening and closing we are adding a sliding barn door along the right side of the hallway to cover the laundry/mudroom opening.  I plan on it usually being open so we can easily get our soon to be family of five in a out of the mudroom but on days when I am running laundry I can close it to muffle the noise.  The barn door idea has been giving me a hard time.  Those things are very pricey.  I originally wanted something like this:

But the door alone would have cost me about $1,000! Ouch.  Definitely not in our budget at the moment.  So now I am trying to find an old, salvaged door like one of these below.  Or I may just have to buy a slab from a big box store, paint it a fun color and call it a day.  

The laundry/mudroom space has been hard to photograph since the electrician hasn't gotten the overhead lighting in yet but the tilers were still somehow able to finish the floor.  And the cabinets are in and waiting to be installed.

The vision for this space is to have the washer and dryer installed in the left, lower corner of the above photo with a large bar installed above for hanging clothes.  Then there will be a wall of cabinets with upper and lowers and a sink with butcher block counters.  On the right side of this room we will eventually build "lockers" of some sort but for now we will just throw up some hooks on the wall and a bench below.  I'm a little sad that this space has no natural light but it is a small price to pay to have a larger laundry room and more designated mudroom (instead of the tiny hallway I had before) and we can't forget that giant open space between the kitchen and family room.  

I chose a large 12x24" tile for the floor in a medium grey color and fun cement tiles for the backsplash (part of my splurge).  The cabinets are the same creamy white color with lighter butcher block counters.  The walls will be the same light gray color as the rest of the main floor.  I hope the space isn't too dark....eek.  Electrician please finish!

There is suppose to be a lot happening at the house this week...drywall finishing, painting, cabinets and hopefully the electrician.  And once again I am failing to mention anything about the basement.  Someday I will do an update on that.  Right now it is a mess but it is painted and the ceiling is in.

Almost there....I think.  I hope.

2.5 weeks until baby #3's big arrival.  2.5 weeks to get it all done.