interesting interview with a soapstone countertop homeowner...

The Granite Gurus: An interview with a Soapstone Countertop Homeowner...: Soapstone is a very misunderstood countertop material, so I thought it would be fun to do an interview with someone who has Soapstone counters...

Learned a lot of very helpful information from this article and thought I would share!

gotta know our house number...

With the many options of house numbers available, you would think that finding one would be a simple task.  There have been a couple house numbers that have been almost right - but they weren't big enough or they weren't "modern" enough or they were "too" modern...  It wasn't until we stumbled our way to Etsy that we were able to find the perfect house numbers. 

Interestingly enough, the company, Austin Outdoor Studio, is based in Austin, TX...my home for a couple of years while I was getting my Masters.  Check out their site here...

They do custom steel fabrication - we chose the vertical panel with our house number on it.  You can kind of get an idea of what the finished product will look like below (and we ordered our correct house numbers for those of you who are thinking that these are the wrong numbers...).

With the down lighting from the overhangs, the address will look really neat.  After receiving the product, I will post an update as to the quality.  But, after a very thorough search of the world wide web, we think that these will look great. 

So, we hope you enjoy visiting us and can find us with ease now that we will have these cool house numbers...and with the awesome illuminated doorbell by Spore, you have no excuse to not visit!

concrete crushin' should only be done by professionals...

If you can try and remember back to a time when there was an enchanted forest enclosed by a much sturdier than required concrete retaining wall.  We have hated this retaining wall and have been told that removing it will be really expensive - so we thought we would take a jackhammer to it and see just how much we could remove ourselves...you know, kind of a goodwill gesture. 

OMG...after 4 hours being thrown around with that loud, rented power tool, I am sore in places that make me firmly believe that that the aforementioned tasks should be performed only by professionals. 

We were somewhat successful in our endeavor - the part of the retaining wall that the landscaper was "pretending wasn't there" is for the most part gone!  We will definitely be feeling it for a while...but at least who ever will take over from here can now square off the retaining wall which had an awful curve before.

We, of course, hope that they make that wall go away! 

You can kind of see the terrible, awful in the photos below which I took during one of my many breaks from the power tool madness in which I probably said "oh my goodness" and "this sucks" and lots of other things which do not require repeating here.

The fella who lived here before was serious about building things to last - this retaining wall is at least a foot wide.  I doubt that it was built to code since the city had to condemn the pool that the enchanted forest was covering and fill it in - they knocked the fence down which previously sat atop this lovely concrete monstrosity.  Oh, and did I mention that the wall was about 3 feet tall...surprise!

So, I admit to saying words that probably should never be said and being way too overdramatic and almost overheated had it not been for our buddies Bobby and Alan for bringing us much needed hydration (Oh, Thank Heaven!), we were mostly successful in demolishing the terrible, awful that our landscaper was pretending wasn't there!  Since we do not possess her capacity to pretend it isn't there, I am proud to show you the fruits of our labor...

We were no longer feeling goodwill at this point and since there is still grading to be done, we figured it would be best to let Tom and his team of professionals take care of the rest, including getting that concrete into the dumpster.  And, since we do not own a tractor, this hot mess of a concrete wall is now to a point where the trained professionals can take it from here...

And, we will go back to doing the hard things, like picking out countertops!

hardwoods and house stalking...

How fun is it to be talking about hardwood flooring...I actually cannot believe that the day has come and I no longer see concrete on the first floor!  Right now, I can mainly see the sub floor, which is wood but not the pretty kind, but it sure is a great change.

But, check out the progress of the house.  The exterior is complete except for painting the trim and flap boards.  The stucco turned out beautifully!

I tried to capture a couple of different angles...below is taken from the garage looking toward Cortez.

Taken from front left (you can see the potty in the bottom left of the picture for those of you who have been following from the very beginning...).

Taken from the back courtyard.  The flapboards require us to choose a color - now that the gray stucco is complete, we can grab a couple of different samples to make the final decision.  We are thinking a darkish gray color...not too dark, but definitely a contrast that will bring all of the colors together.  Only two areas require this color and they are aren't really visible from the front or side of the house.

If you look really closely, I kind of gave a preview of the subfloor.  We chose hickory for the flooring and are leaning toward using a finish that brings out the natural color of the wood.  We haven't really made up our minds, but we have made up our minds about the sheen...we are going with a low sheen finish.  I am not sure what the technical term for this is...

The subfloor looks great!

And, below you can see the blue line that will be the start of a beautiful thing.  You can also see the unfinished wood - so pretty! 



And there is a lot of wood that has to be installed...

Oh, and a very interesting aspect of the home building process is all of the friends we have met...as they have been stalking the house!  We have met some neighbors, we have met some strangers, we have met all kinds of folks just walking around the house and checking out the floor plan and the progress.

We are actually the biggest stalkers though...we have worn out the roads between our house and the new house.  I have finally broken myself of the habit of taking the long way back home...which is a huge win for me!

But, now...even we cannot stalk our own house!!!  It is locked up!  We tried to go look at the progress late last night and found a lock on the door and all other doors locked...just another indicator that we are really going to have a finished house soon!!!



Please don't be offended if you are one of the many house stalkers...we have found it awesome that folks have visited and not one single thing has been vandalized...I hope that I do not jinx anything! 

We are looking forward to inviting all of you over once we have a completed home - we have never had a housewarming party before and our first is going to be somewhat of a blowout...well, at least for a couple of consulting nerds! 

Stay tuned...

thinking about fire in may...

While we will not be able to take advantage of our fireplace until it starts to get cooler, which is kind of funny since it is only May and we are already experiencing 90 degree days.  I can only imagine the kind of summer that we will have to endure...hopefully we will get some kind of reprieve from the heat, not enough to light up a fire, of course! 

But, even in Dallas, we can maybe start thinking about lighting a fire in early December or maybe even late November.  During Fall months I can usually remember past weather based on Alabama football or Christmas lights...  And I definitely can remember that we have had a fire blazing during the Alabama vs. Auburn football games which are played in late November. 

But, this year, even the heat is not going to keep me from thinking about fire in May...  Since everything seems to be progressing at light speed, we have already purchased the really cool products that we will have installed in our fireplace - and instead of picturing logs burning in our fireplace, picture glass instead...lots and lots of glass!

If you haven't seen any fireplaces where glass is used instead of logs, check out this site for more details.

Just to remind you of the wall that houses the fireplace - I have provided a rough sketch of the fireplace wall, including notes related to the mantle and hearth, fireplace surround, and audio/video equipment is below.

Like many of the other products that we have ordered for the house, the 60 pounds of glass and burner sits in our house (the one that can usually be seen from space during the holidays...) awaiting installation day.  The fireplace below is not ours, but serves as an example of what you can expect once ours has been installed.

It looks like the folks in the fireplace above chose clear glass.  We chose Caribbean Blue Metallic Glass and one of their smaller 18' burners.

Believe it or not, it takes a lot of glass poured over the burner if you want the recommended 3" to 4" of glass.  Luckily, we were able to save money by choosing 40 pounds of the clear glass to cover the burner and provide the base.  We will then pour the 20 pounds of blue on top of the clear glass which is pictured below.

When lit, the fire will kind of dance on the glass.  It is a beautiful effect and we have seen it in different places.  Most recently, we saw it at the new Omni Dallas hotel. 

I cannot wait to have folks over in the winter and show off the glass crystals in the fireplace - and hopefully celebrating an Alabama victory as we sit and watch the fire!

landscaping is hard to do...

We were provided the initial plans for the landscaping this afternoon and I must admit, Michael Ann who has worked with Tom for many years, listened to what we told her and really delivered!  She has a very tough job - our corner lot is quite large and the house was built within the easement restrictions of the property leaving the lot with essentially two front yards. 

Our main goal was low maintenance and a wonderful place for McKinney, our labradoodle, to enjoy!  And, I wanted a much larger, formal koi pond!  And, we did not require modern, contemporary landscaping design.

There are a lot of folks that would question why we built a modern home if we were just going to turn it into a transitional home?  Short and sweet...we love modern but we also love carrara and knock out roses. 

You are going to have to take my word for it that Michael Ann provided lovely, easy to read drawings of the landscape design.  Using my iphone to try and take a good, readable picture of the plans is almost laughable...but I thought that having something to look at was better than nothing. 

I already know that mom is going to get frustrated because she just can't see it real good...  Mom, I can't see it real good in these pictures either.  I tried to at least provide a couple of descriptions in one of the picture so that you can kind of try to envision the rest from there.

You will see that McKinney has a nice sized back yard which will basically be grass and fence - nothing special required there...remember, we have to think about budget too.  The backyard space will be larger than our current backyard - and instead of one door leading outside, McKinney has his pick of 3 different sliding glass doors.  We, of course, will have to open the doors for him - but that is ok since we have never been big fans of doggie doors.  McKinney is quite a lot bigger than most labradoodles, so his doggie door would allow just about any human to enter the house as well.  You will also see that we have two front yards.  And, in frontyard 2, right off the front courtyard (the sliding doors facing Thornberry in the dining area) is a wonderful deck and the location of my awesome formal, koi pond (1200 gallons of healthy, beautiful pond)!

Here is the key - just to frustrate you as you try to match up the little plants from the key with the landscape drawing.

Ok...now that you are equipped with a key, here is the entire landscape.  Notice that I tried to give you an idea of where the house is and the front door - that is all I can do unfortunately...  Better than nothing, though!

 And here is a "close up" of the deck and the front courtyard area...the spot of my koi pond.

Wow...that isn't very much better than the first image.  But that little rectangular spec right off the wood deck is the koi pond.  I am going to ask her to make it quite a bit larger and 1 more foot deep - the pond will be partially below ground.  The ledge of the pond on the deck side which will be above ground will also serve as a bench on the deck.  Pretty clever, huh?

Now good luck trying to figure out what each of the plants are...hint, the 6 circles lining the right are double knock out roses.

tile stream of consciousness...

Ok...for those of you who have been asking us what kind of tile we are using in the bathroom, this is for you!  Except, instead of just sharing our choices for the bathroom, we will share our choices for all of the tile which will be in the house.

I can tell you without hesitation that of all of the challenges to this point, choosing tile has been the hardest.

First, there is the budget...we asked Tom what our price range is and he said $3 a square foot.  If  you have priced tile anywhere, I mean tile that you would actually use, you know that this sort of tile does not exist.

I accidentally found Ann Sacks and realized really quickly that some tile can cost more than appliances.  So, with the budget in mind and the internet at my fingertips, away I went searching page after page of tile...glass tile, stone tile, ceramic tile, mosaic tile...  Started to feel a bit like Bubba, except for me it is tile instead of shrimp - for those of you who missed out on my Alabama humor, Bubba was in Forrest Gump. 

But for real, after a while of looking only at tile, I had to take breaks because I felt I was gonna go a bit insane...  I kept telling myself that it cannot be normal to have visions of tile shadowing every aspect of my waking being...even my dreams were consumed with page after page of tile.  How can I best view the most tiles at one time - I really enjoy the sites that allow you to see all products, even though there are like 3000 but why do they do that?  I think the waiting for the images to load is more frustrating than 20 per page.  Now, 100 per page performs pretty well.  If you have searched tirelessly for that perfect something on the internet, you understand.

And, for those of you who would be completely perplexed that we could choose tile online and think that there is no way that you could select tile from internet retailers after only seeing pictures, then maybe you should not read any further.  Just about every tile was selected site unseen with trust based on previous internet shopping adventures and knowing that the pictures are usually quite accurate and reviews really help to confirm any lingering doubts. 

After confirming our choices with Tom so that he could order them, we now just wait and hope that they look like the pictures...

But, I digress.  Since we do not have large areas that require tile, the task of choosing shouldn't be so tough, right?  Wrong...with all of the different price ranges and types of tile all just a click away, we realized that we had to have some sort of a game plan.  The best one I could come up with was to shop one room at a time.  With this approach, we are pretty excited about our selections...and hope that Tom was joking about the $3 per square foot.

Let's begin with the upstairs bathroom.  For the floor, the choice was quite easy and believe it or not, we were able to stay within the budget...actually, I think that Tom might have found these tiles for just a bit under budget at $2.99.  That is a whopping 1 penny per square foot under budget for those of you keeping score!

The tile is by DalTile and is called Fabrique in Blanc Linen.  This tile will be used on the floor of the upstairs bathroom as well as the laundry room downstairs and is a 12x24 field tile.  As hard as it is to believe, this tile is porcelain.  The only site I could find that had a pretty good description has the price at 3.99 but if memory serves me correctly, we found them for less.  Anyway, you can read more about the tile here...

The wall tile was a bit more complicated since we wanted to have a little bit of fun and not be predictable - and not being predictable makes it almost impossible to stay within the budget.  But at least we can rest assured that just about any tile has to be closer to the budget than the tile I was pricing out at Ann Sacks.  Did you know that there is tile that costs $110 a square foot?  Believe it... 

Ann Sacks must love her some rich folks!  Anyway, I got a little creative here  knowing that we were wanting something in the gray family and hopefully glass, so we found some vitreous glass mosaic tiles in three complementary colors (storm, cloud, and beach).  These will be installed in a modern linear pattern which I will draw out for the installer.  This tile will also carry into the common area and be installed behind the mirror and above the vanity.

Storm Color - I sure hope that the dangling tile near the bottom right of the sheet of tile is not representative of all sheets in our order...

Cloud Color - should work nicely with the Storm...

 Beach Color - a nice mix of the two...

Now I know that separately, these tiles are sort of blah.  But here is sort of the vision of how we want these tiles to be installed.

Now, mixing these tiles together really makes some blah tiles pop, if I do say so myself...  The design will probably be tweaked multiple times, but we ordered 40 square feet of storm (dark gray color)  and 20 square feet of the other two.  So, the pattern will have to work out using 2 parts storm to 1 part of cloud and beach.

As you know, we have already ordered the penny tile that we will have installed in the powder room from floor to ceiling on the wall opposite the door - not sure if the vanity will be installed before or after, but I think we have enough either way.  I have discussed this tile in a previous post...

The master bathroom was the most challenging - especially to the budget.  For the shower, we chose this tile which is both a glass and marble mosaic of larger and smaller pieces in a random pattern - this will installed AFF which I just recently learned means above finished floor. 

Now for the shower floor, we will be using natural stone pebbles.  My only hope is that this is not a fad but since it is only going to be in the shower, we took a risk and went with them because we like the way they look and I bet they will feel really cool too!

What do you think?  Will these tiles go out of style in like a hot second?  I have seen some folks go crazy with these tiles on Houzz - but I think limiting them to the shower area and also matching them to the floor tiles will keep these current. 

Now, some folks said that these tiles were quite difficult to line up - looks to me as if the shape lends itself to easy installation.  Now, I am not sure how they will get a straight edge when they lay these against the wall, but I leave such challenges to the trained professionals.

And for the master bathroom floor we actually were able to find some more tile that was in budget!  These tiles are rather large (24x24) and are called Stream in the color Ice by Eleganza.  These too are polished porcelain but have the feel of natural stone.  I actually cannot believe how much porcelain and ceramic tile has advanced in the past couple of years - they can make tiles look and kind of feel like almost anything.  You can read more about these Eleganza tiles here...

The final tile we had to choose had already been decided on for quite some time - the kitchen backsplash.  We are using honed Carrara marble subway tiles.  These tiles will line the stove wall and the refrigerator wall - the Carrara marble on the island will be polished.  We know, we know...we have chosen the two most high maintenance countertop surfaces (Carrara and Soapstone) but we have our heart set on it, and know that if we change our mind at this point, we will kick ourselves...so no going back now.  The tiles below look tumbled, but you get the idea... 

We will update you at a later time on how our decision plays out.  We keep hearing that we will etch the island the first time we cook and that we should go with the honed finish instead of the polished finish...we have heard all of the warnings...and we are stubbornly not changing our minds. 

We figure if we have a high maintenance dog, we may as well have some high maintenance countertops as well!