Fifty Shades of Gray

Let's talk kitchens.  Islands, pendant lighting, tile and tin backsplashes - it's the stuff dreams are made of, right?  We've got a budget for this whole house project that factors in every detail from the deck stain to the wiring, and we're trying to pinch pennies everywhere we can so we can spend a little more in the places that matter, like trim work, shutters, and....the kitchen. 

So I'll be straightforward.  I am spoiled.  SPOILED.  Growing up in a household where every room was remodeled as many times as as the seasons change will make you that way, and my god, living in rental kitchens for the past 10ish years has turned me into a custom-hungry animal, a savage, builder-grade monster in search of inset doors and cabinets that reach the ceiling.  I mean really, is there anything as ugly as builder-grade cabinets?  The way they hang halfway in the middle of a wall like some tacky, bachelor pad afterthought.  Ugh.  Gives me the willies.  (The way I could go on about ugly kitchens would terrify you.  Like little-dog-in-a-Gucci-handbag terrifying.)

Anyway, because our kitchen layout will affect the way our lighting is placed and thus how the electric is run, we've started planning early in the process.  (And of course because this is by far the most important room in the house and thus, will affect everything in general - duh.)

So gray (or grey, if you prefer).  I, for quite a few years now, have loved the look of shimmery, spotless white kitchen cabinets.  There is something so fresh, so perfectly blank-slate about them, and now that the ugly wood paneling along the rims is (for the the most part) a thing of the past, I decided long before this home-buying process that I was getting just that: clean, painted white cabinets.  Then I met this wonderful, albeit messy, man and adopted our equally wonderful and even more messy dog.  White?  Ha.  Yeah that idea went out faster than our drunk neighbor.  So I've compromised.  Let me introduce, gray.  He's handsome, warm, nearly as fresh as white, and not a bit less stylish.  He plays well with all the colors (except red - which just gives me one more reason never to decorate with red woo!), and let's be honest, he's way hipper than white.  So yeah, I'm a gray convert.  LOVING some gray.

We'll be working with an RTA cabinet company to order our cabinets we're free to choose any Sherwin Williams shade for our project.  Thankfully, it only took somewhere around three months to get a final decision.  But it was so fun.  I say that especially on behalf of Todd who got to spend hours zoning out while he pretended to have to have any sort of opinion between Grayish, Repose, and Popular Gray.  (The difference was huge, but we'll just ignore that fact.)

And because our granite has to match our cabinets, we got a visit the granite yard!  Our trip to the granite yard involved me running around like a mad woman saying, "No. That's ugly.  No. Too tan.  No. Too dark. No - just no," while Todd stared at the ceiling watching the workers move the granite overhead.  So here is our plan below: A lovely Knitting Needles gray (I mean, aren't you sold on the name alone?) with the mighty Typhoon White Quartzite.

 Ok, enough about kitchens.  Really, that's months away. We don't even have plumbing, people.

Move on to the next post to see what we've really been doing, please.