Tonight on <i>House</i>

In two days, we’ll hear a number on our appraisal and know that there is nothing left that could snag this house deal for us. I only have to wait until Tuesday. Edit: Appraisal is good. Didnt take until Tues. All systems go.

After Tuesday, then the crazy can kick into full gear and we plan our pre-move in projects, which so far include kitchen countertops and backsplash, courtesy of the seller, and have to be decided upon BY closing. Immediately after closing we’re pitching in our own dough to give the existing kitchen cabinets a facelift and put down some new flooring in there. Thus, pre-move in, post-house purchase, whole new kitchen. Someday in the distant future we can add new appliances to complete the mix, but for now, those are new to us and they’ll have to do.

In the meantime, I am dreaming about countertops and backsplashes, cabinet finishes, flooring ideas, building a kitchen from existing bones that will both compliment the existing attached breakfast area and be somehow in both my style, JT’s style, and not make me hate my pretty dishes.

The notion so far:
The breakfast nook is deep red ceramic tiles with a very subtle small floral pattern on white wallpaper.

The existing kitchen cabinets are sort of oak-brown, stainless-steel sink, white dishwasher and fridge, almond stove and range.

BEFORE it had really sunk in that the tiles in the nook were RED, I was dreaming of pretty green and copper colors in the kitchen.

NOW, we’re looking at a countertop called “lava quartzite” which is blue-green tones, blacks, and very deep reds. We both love it.

The cabinets we hope to sand and stain a bit of a warmer brown color, and add some flat-black?Metal? colored hardware.

The backsplash I want to do in tin. Check out www.acpideas.com. My problem is I can’t decide on what finish… copper would be lovely and warm, cross-hatch silver would be striking and look cool later with some stainless steel appliances, but I have an urge to get paintable and just go flat-blackedit: If we get tin, it needs to be metal-colored, not painted, says JamesT. Now we’re back to which one.

Then, the floor. Originally I was thinking very dark slate, something amazingly dark and on the verge of black. Now I’m thinking it’s going to be too much with the bright white and red, so many windows breakfast nook and the dark dark, don’t we love black, kitchen. I’ve tried lightening it up to gray tones, and I’m not happy. I want to go with greens again, but something in me says green floor next to red tile floor will forever be a bad idea. So, I’m leaning toward going with a lighter warm wood tone, like cedar-ish in color. Lighter than the cabinets, but warm. Of course, all this depends on how the cabinet stain comes out, so I guess flooring will be decided upon last.

Then, project number two, the den. That one is going to depend on what couches we decide on. There is a stained-cedar wall on one end and a stained-cedar built in bar at the other. Wood trim, and on the outer wall, there is a wooden shelf and trim piece that runs along the high-set basement windows with their wooden shutters. Right now the room is white walls, white ceiling, beige carpet.

Here, depending on couches again, we are going to go with something like a silvery-gray, silvery-blue or sea-glass green color on the walls. The TV and component stands are black glass and stainless steel, of course. I’m looking at a couch and a loveseat in some neutral tone between cream and taupe with a deep-brown leather cocktail ottoman. We’re looking at getting an Ikea Expedit bookcase in black-brown as a room divider, and a couple of sweet armless black leather lounge chairs. These things I can all mostly envision somehow coming together into a mish mash of something comfortable and functional.

The fun-part is going to be the “acoustic cloud” I want to build for the ceiling. We want to accomplish darkening the ceiling in the “theater” area, creating some ambient uplighting, and dampen the sound carried to the upstairs. First I was just having flashbacks of some Trading Spaces episode where they hung luaun on the ceiling to cover it up, then another episode where they hung a painted canvas over a dining table with some strings of fairy lights above it. Then a little research turned up the wildly expensive pre-made acoustic clouds.

Thus we have the great idea and fun project notion to create our own acoustic cloud. Luaun, covered in acoustic batting, wrapped in fabric (probably brown), reinforced with some wood strips on the back for stability, hung at the four corners by short chain into eye-hooks in the ceiling. Probably one large rectangle, the equivalent of an area rug for the seating area, but on the ceiling. AND, of course, top it off with some fairy lights above it to create some ambient lighting.

Other projects that need thought:

My office / guest room, will ideally have my desk and either a twin bed or a day bed, doing duty as a couch 99% of the time. This will need me to decide on a day bed I like, buy the thing, and of course… the room needs to be painted… SOME color that won’t make me angry while I work. No clue what that is yet.

The actual guest / perhaps temporary Brad room, will ideally have a queen bed and not a hell of a lot else. This room also needs to be painted.

The master bedroom, was only recently painted a lovely shade of lavender, similar to Kit’s bedroom I believe. Though I didn’t think I would like that color with any of our bedroom things, I think I’m going to give it a whirl and see what it’s like to live with before I jump in to paint this room again. In the meantime, I’ve picked out a lovely new bedset that I want, which might work better.

The dining room, currently is painted a very subtle white top half, cream lower half with a wallpaper border around the center of the room. This needs painting. This needs a chandelier. This needs to house the lovely dining set and buffet I have picked out, but alas will not be purchasing until some later date.

The great room, is getting our current downstairs furniture, hopefully with lovely new seat covers which I’m ordering (after Tuesday, after Tuesday). It will also get the current coffee-table that goes with the futon-that-is-going-away. This room is currently a muted but warm yellow color, the fireplace is slate, the existing “old” tv and stand, bookshelves, and the elliptical will land in there. I’m already dreaming of new furniture, but alas, that being the room where we already have the most stuff, will probalby wait until last to be “fixed up”, even if it is the first room you see. We’re hoping for the meantime, people won’t even notice our old crap sitting in the cool high-ceilinged room with the cool fireplace, wood beams, and wall of windows (that thankfull already has pretty wood shutters). I might break down and replace the pendant light in the foyer if I get in a mood to swap lights. That foyer light, the breakfast nook light and the dining room chandelier are all lovely bright-shiny brass and glass.

Well, okay. Now perhaps with all those thoughts captured here in “print” I can at last relax on the house front, stop dreaming about color samples, and just make it through Tuesday. Lord knows there are plenty of other things going on right now that I should be giving some time to. If it says anything, I let the first nine episodes of The Dresden Files play today while I sat at the computer trying to resolve some work issues and figure out projects. That doesn’t include the time beforehand I spent taking things to goodwill and doing our neverending laundry. JT, Marc & Jennie went to the golf tourney for the day, and Brad apparently made another attempt at trying to figure out how he could possibly get from our new house to his work and back without going absolutely insane.

Tuesday will be 30 35 days until the loan closes and we take possession. We must have the countertops and backsplash decided by 2 weeks before that. We will need to get our shit sorted, organized and mostly packed by then. We will need our tools bought to begin our projects by the day after closing if we want to get a good two-full weekends ONE weekend of work done and have one weekend left to move. Edit: Seller couldn’t arrange getting all his shit out in time, bumped our closing date to after the weekend. Joy.

There I went off on house stuff again. I tell you, I am counting the hours. This is just so exciting and daunting at the same time that my brain can’t focus on anything else. Must… just… chill… until… at… least… Tuesday.