Holly’s Weblog

Its been awhile cuz I’m swamped at work and home!  I’m leading worship at a friend’s church for 3 weeks – picking music, keys, rehearsing and all that…administrator at work (Kim) was on vacation for 4 looong days…and lots of other boring-but-time-consuming things happening.

Rick and Andrew (and me, too) went to the house to run more wiring in the living room (tomorrow they’ll go run wiring into the bedrooms), so that there can be speakers, TV and computers in every room a family might wish them to be.

Our plumber had an accident (at a different job) and broke his foot, so he’s been unable to finish our job in time for the inspection last Monday (? or was it Tuesday).  Anyway, we thought the rough framing inspection had been passed (boring story) and so I called the company doing the insulation (‘Ponzini Insulation, we’re itching to do your job!’) and got them started – which they did the very next day!  Only to have to tell them to halt…darn it…  So now, the reinspection is for next Tuesday or Wednesday.  And I have to call the drywall guy and tell him he’s pushed out a week.  They must get used to being pushed and pulled, I suppose.

When we were at the house last Saturday, I measured the middle bathroom and discovered it was 2″ too small for the wonderful lavatory console we had purchased.  Damn and blast!  Now, I have a lovely console sitting in the basement awaiting the next project!  Spent all this week trying to find a replacement lav that wasn’t going to kill me, pricewise.  Also found a vanity for the master bath.  Only 5′, not the 6′ we were hoping for but its exactly what I was picturing in my head.  It has espresso finish, cane doors, white marble top, 2 white sinks and has ball feet, so it looks like furniture.  Perfect for a 1930’s bathroom.  We’ll continue the white wainscoting all around the room (going behind the vanity) instead of just around the tub and that will help set it off.

We also finally found chrome faucets that didn’t look so modern.  It seems that brushed steel/nickel and bronze and even a weird gold called French Gold is popular but not much in the chrome department.  But chrome is more correct for the time period so that’s what we’re sticking with.

Really nice, too, was that all of the above was on sale and so even having to buy another sink didn’t put us over budget!

AND!!  I found the dining room chandelier and the nook chandelier and they MATCH!  And they are IN my budget!  I was looking at crystal, because that would be historically correct, but not aesthetically correct, but those were a tad too small for the space and still I needed bronze for the nook because the track for over the kitchen island is bronze (and maybe the kitchen faucet, too, because historic accuracy flies in the face of looks, convenience and, above all, budget for the kitchen.  Have to stick with something that ‘calls to mind’ the historic time of the building)…and I FOUND a lovely pair that are perfect!  YAY!  We’ve narrowed down the wall sconces and still have to pick the entry lights and bedroom lights and, oh yes, bathroom lights, but no worries, there.  because there are LOTS of choices in our budget.

I have to start thinking about the colors for the outside of the house…leaning toward grayish-blue with dark blue shutters and bright white trim.  Very New England cottage-y. which is what the house actually is…but then I’ve been through white with green trim and beige with something trim, so who knows what it will end up being.   The inside colors have been set for most of the rooms although the middle and front baths switch back and forth sometimes.  Went to some open houses for new homes and they’d picked very strong colors in all the rooms, living room and family room spaces mostly all one color, dining room and the bathrooms each a different color – I forget what the bedrooms were doing.  So I’m no longer worried that the colors I choose will cause people to run out of the house screaming.  Whatever I do will be fine…

Rick has an appt with the finish guy next week…the guy who would hang the kitchen cabinets and do the crown moulding, baseboards, door and window trim, etc.   Boy, there is a TON of that stuff.  One of the new homes we went into last week was actually a remodel of a historic home and shoulda had all that fancy trim but didn’t.  Well, ours will.  Its important.