Solid Gold (and Brass) Baby!

The kitchen reno is progressing nicely....we're at the drywalling stage with hardwood floor refinishing happening this weekend.  So...it's at the kinda boring grunt work stage.

BUT!  Some exciting things have been coming in the mail....

Like our satin gold faucet!  Yup, we're abandoning the chrome wave and going with gold and brass fixtures (in satin finishes, of course).  This is a Jewel faucet.  The great thing about Jewel is their made in Italy faucets come in tons of finishes...but all are polished.  So, we contacted the company to see if they would do a satin finish for us, and they did (and for no extra charge)!  The guys at the Canadian distributor in Surrey, BC were really great to work with!

And check out these babies, who just arrived today:

Satin brass cabinet edge pulls by Complete Cabinet Hardware.  Oh man, I cannot wait to see these guys peaking out from all our cupboards and drawers...

So yup, things are progressing.  Fingers crossed that we'll be installing cabinets in a little over a week...

Reno Gold - Original Hardwood

So.....remember when I said we might consider refinishing the original hardwood under all those layers of vinyl tile in the kitchen if it was in decent condition...but that that was highly unlikely?

Well, surprise surprise!  There is beautiful golden hardwood under there and we are going to refinish it!

So, despite the fact that we spent hours upon hours selecting the perfect tile for the space, we are scrapping that and saving some serious $$! 

Refinishing won't come without challenges.  We realized that when after hours and hours and hours of scraping up vinyl tile we found a lovely hole in the floor in one of the most visible areas....but, overall we are thrilled with the idea of original hardwood.  We were always a bit uneasy about how the tile would age over time, but the hardwood is classic and true to the vintage of the house....and now we have a bit of room in the budget for surprises....or maybe a new light fixture!

Kitchen Demo Progress

Now that the ceiling and walls are down, it's on to the floors...they consist of vinyl tile on vinyl tile on 1/4" ply on...you guessed it, more vinyl tile on original hardwood on original plank subfloor.  And ugh, it all has to come out!  If the hardwood is salvageable we may refinish, but that doesn't look too likely.  The good news is that none if the layers of vinyl tile contain asbestos (we had them tested)!

Let the Kitchen Renos Begin!

There's no turning back now!  After nearly 4 years of dreaming, planning, and designing...this is happening!

Check out the kitchen in its pre-demo state here.

The Kitchen ... So Far

As promised, here is a tour of our kitchen.  I don't want to call it a 'before and after', because there's definitely more work that we plan to do down the road in this room...so it's more of a 'before and so far'.

The biggest change we've made to the space is the addition of an island.  We both love to cook, so having the extra counter space is helpful...even more helpful is the dishwasher we added in the island.

The kitchen also sort of doubles as an office space, though more often than not, we end up just using the laptop in the Living Room.  That clock over the french door is our great-grandfather clock (it was a gift to Tessa's great-grandfather when he retired in the 1970's).  (Lots more photos after the jump!)