Lights, Paint and Deck Action

With the cabinets in the hard decisions have come home to roost, and so far, at least, I muffed one. Luckily it is undoable, with some (albeit small) cost. I wonder if you will notice it in these pictures. Answer will be below!

I've been playing with the tin tiles, moving them around, trying to figure out how they should sit behind the stove. I've never quite been satisfied with the layout, it always seemed ok, but lacked a center somehow. I thought that maybe I'd try to center one over the clock on the stove, but in a diamond pattern. Maurice sent his brother Jeff over (Jeff is the artistic brother, I think, and works with a lot of folks on color etc.) Jeff hmmed and hmmed, moved stuff around, then came up with a much better idea - use the tiles around the kitchen, not just behind the stove. We hung them where they will be -- essentially embedded in the tile - very nice, I love it. And most importantly, the tiles over the stove seem to set right, finally. The pendant lights look great over the island, I think, they are so pretty.



The painters have primed the walls, and have been waiting for the color choice. So again, Jeff helped narrow down the colors. I wanted a yellowish, ochre, sort of the color of the pottery we saw in the south of France. You can see the color here - it is the one on the right -- the one on the left is too acidic (although hard to tell the difference from this picture):



Look closely at this picture and you can see the mistake. See the lights over the window? Agh. I chose them when the original ones we had settled upon became unavailable. Ugh. Bad choice. Anyway, they are gone now, and we will have to sell them on Craig's list because for some crazy reason, lights are not returnable. Not sure why this is - wacky. Now I am on the hunt for lights that work, but since I've been burned once, I am worried about making the wrong choice.

Anyway, the Ipe (Brazillian hard wood) came in and it is beautiful. Check out the deck (Sage already loves it):



And, probably most importantly, we have stairs! Finally, we can bring our laundry up from the basement without going all the way around to the front door. Also, we can let the dogs out to the back yard and let them go in and out (except for Rocky, who won't go back up the stairs once he's down there).




Next up: floors, counter tops, paint and designing the deck railings!