Final Bids

Our builder ended up sending me to a second plumbing supply vendor, and I am happy to report that they had a much better supply of fixtures within our allowance amount- woohoo!

When Eric was little his parents remodeled their house and he can still remember being "dragged" around to different stores with his parents while they picked stuff out. I wonder if our kids will remember any of this? They have done great the few times they have had to tag along with me. The tablets definitely make things easier :)

Here's our kitchen faucet (no plate on the bottom, brushed nickel):

Bathroom faucet:

Shower:

In other news- I ordered all of our door knobs! Another area where we ended up NOT having to compromise. I am SO excited! They are going to look fabulous on our doors:

Let's see, what else? I am going to go ahead and order the West Elm light fixtures for the breakfast room and dinning room. I have a 10% off coupon, so I'm just trying to decide when I should order those. Our tenant is scheduled to move out the third week of August and then demolition will begin on August 26th!! This week we will get all of the final bids and work on coming up with final numbers. I THINK we have made some really good decisions where it counts, so there's a really good chance we aren't going to have to compromise on the important items (doors, windows, floors) after all! Sweet!

Tiring But Successful Day

Monday was a long and tiring day, but by the end of it we made a lot of progress selecting things for the new house.

The first stop was the windows and doors vendor. We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted so there weren't too many decision to make. Here is a picture of a door that is similar to what we picked as option #1:

We haven't decided yet if we will paint it or stain the wood, so TBD on that one. Our option #2, which is actually what we would prefer if it is within budget, would be a custom made door- similar to this one but with no raised panels (like the adjacent door on the left but with the six windows on top like the one on the right). 

Next it was on to interior doors. Here is the one we want:

Here is the one we can afford :(. We really don't want the raised panels, so we will have a big decision to make about this one once we tally up all of our selections. 

Here are our fiberglass windows (we don't like the grid look so ours won't have that): 

Here are the windows we would love to have. They have a thicker trim and the inside is wood. Very pretty:

Next it was on to the flooring vendor. I didn't take many pictures there because we didn't really make any decisions! I guess we just mostly narrowed things down. For the wood floors we are getting pricing on 3" red oak and also 3" hickory. I thought the hickory floors were gorgeous, but they are going to be more expensive so I'm guessing we'll probably stick with the oak. Stain color TBD once the floor is in later. We realized we don't like the look of engineered wood floors, so that was one concrete decision we made!

We picked the style of carpet we want (oh so luxurious after the builder grade stuff that is in our current house!) but are still unsure about the color. 

We discussed tile for the bathrooms (white hexagonal tiles to match master bath) and very briefly looked at backsplash options for the kitchen. That one is going to take some more research- after, of course, we pick what countertops we want!

Next it was on to the plumbing fixture vendor. This was actually our most disappointing stop so far. 99% of their fixtures were out of our price range, so we ended up just picking something that was close to our target without regard for the style. I'm hoping to visit another vendor to check prices, so hopefully the bathroom fixtures will change. Here's the kitchen faucet, which we think is a decent option (ours will be satin nickel):

Here's the ridiculously expensive shower fixture we chose (the only one near our budget, and was still over!). It will be the water sprayers on the left with the lever on the right. All in satin nickel.

And here is the uber boring sink faucet. $110- just can't believe it! We have one from Costco that we love that was $40. Granted, it has plastic parts on the inside and this one is made with higher quality parts, but still.

We were warned beforehand that our plumbing allowance seemed low, which is fine. We don't mind going over the allowance as long as it is on awesome stuff! I hope the next vendor has some better options. 

Next up we visited our friend who works at AG&M to look at marble and granite slabs. The truth is, Eric and I want carrera marble counters. There, I said it. We want them. We know they scratch, stain, chip and etch easily. But we want them! We have gone back and forth about them because we know they are risky- but we just keep coming back to it! We love the honed marble look that we have seen in Europe, and at the end of the day we are ok with our counters getting some character from the wear and tear. To be prudent, though, we figured we should see what else is out there to make sure we want to take on the risk of having marble counters. Here is a slap of gorgeous carrera:

We saw some beautiful slabs of granite, quartzite and marble- but there was a clear winner :) By the way- I think everyone should visit a slab yard at least once in their lives. To see all of that beauty that came straight out of the earth is amazing!

Anyway, after the yard we moved on to the counter fabricators office where we took a look at some engineered stone options. Here's a picture of the ones that most closely resembled the marble, which is the big one in the middle. On the upper left is a wild card we threw in there with speckled fragments just because we thought it was pretty. :)

It might not convey in this crummy photo- but none of the engineered options had the same life and brightness as the marble. I think we are finally ready to commit to it without reservations.

So, that was our day! There were some highs and some lows, but luckily no fights! :) We ended our day with a much needed drink at a bar near our house. 

First Selections!

Eric and I visited two vendors yesterday to make our first selections for the house. Tomorrow will be another big day- we will be picking the plumbing fixtures, flooring and countertops. It is going to be a busy day, but luckily we met with one of the bigger ones yesterday- lighting. Before spending 5 hours at the lighting store we first stopped by the hardware vendor and picked out our interior door handles, cabinet knobs/pulls and exterior door hardware. Right away we had to face our first budgetary compromise. Our allowance for interior door handles is $35 per door. Here are the ones I loved:

These are $60 per knob :( So, here are the ones we picked (the middle option) They were roughly $19 per knob:

Even though they aren't my first choice (I really like the ones with the rectangular rosette in the back) they will work. At the end of all our selections we will find out if we have money left over to apply to other areas. I think the knobs would look fabulous on our two panel white doors, so I'm guessing we might get them in the end if there is money to spend :) 

Next we picked our front door handle- allowance was $300, this one was $221. Woohooo- already saving money in the first two areas!

Next, it was into the cabinet pulls/knobs room. Our allowance was $5 per. We picked out these babies pretty quickly. Knobs and pulls will be satin nickel and they came in a little under budget at $3-$5, depending on size of the pull:

We finished up at the hardware store much faster than we planned with only the one little hiccup regarding the interior door handles. And hey- no fights! :)

Next up it was lighting. After 5 hours spent with an awesome sales person I can say that some decisions were really easy, like choosing this porch light (we need 4 of them):

Other easy decisions included flood lights for the exterior, closet lights, kid's bathroom lights, 7 fans (4 different styles depending on where they are located) hall lights and the 30+ can lights. We were under budget on all of those! Then, things got harder, and out came the books. 

Turns out the pendant lights that we like (we need 5 at an allowance of $150 each) are out of budget. The breakfast table light that we want (our allowance is $300) is right at our budget for something that seems simple. And the dining room lights that we like (our allowance is $500) is closer to $800. We looked and looked and looked through the books to try to find something to fit in budget and ended up picking selections that are close, but not quite what we want. 

Last night after we got home we did a little more research and came up with some other options. Here's what we picked at the lighting store (second one from left- $177 each):

 Here are two other options that we found online:

We'll find out Monday if either of these are within our budget. Next we'll have to ultimately decide if we like the solid metal one or the one with glass better. Wish us luck on that one!

Next, here's what we picked for the dining room: 

A pretty simple modern light fixture. Our dining table will be quite long- 90+ inches, so we need something that spans a good amount of that. In addition, we have low ceilings on the first floor- just 8'2"- so that limits our options as well as the budget. I think this light fixture was about $350, but we aren't 100% in love with it. After doing some research at home we found one we love at West Elm:

This one is great because 1) it is right at our budget amount 2) it spans 42 inches and 3) hangs from a single satin nickel frame so it will fit in perfectly with our other fixtures. 

We also found this drum chandelier that we love for the breakfast area: 

This one is pretty perfect for a meager $150 bucks compared to the $250 mediocre one we picked out from the vendor.  Our salesperson at the lighting store said drum lights like these are suddenly very popular, so the lighting manufacturers have raised the prices. Grrr no fair! 

The problem with the West Elm lights is that they aren't available from our lighting vendor. Stay tuned for how that turns out....

So that was our first day. So far I am happy to say we are under budget! Eric and I are a very good team and I feel like we knew when to split hairs where it counts (pendant lights in the kitchen) vs. make quick decisions (fans and closet lights etc.). 

Tomorrow will be another fun day! Hopefully we will be as efficient and decisive as we were yesterday.