This has been a long time in coming. Like most of our projects, it has been quite a long gestation. However, because we take so long, we are happy with our decisions for a long time. Since we are investing so much into this major remodel, we want to be happy. Some decisions are made.
I bought my appliances with help from my trusty salesman, Lamont, at the
RC Wiley here in Boise. After talking
with a repairman and looking at rebate opportunities, I decided to go with
Kitchenaid. All will be white to match with the white cabinetry except the range top which only comes in stainless. The range top and double oven were the major
concerns and I like the way they look. The ovens are a lovely cobalt blue
inside, which just makes me feel happy.
But more importantly, I like the lighting as it is on the sides which
help to illuminate all levels of the oven.
I also bought a dishwasher and microwave. Sadly we will be letting go of one of the
first things we purchased when we were married, a Quasar microwave, that has
lasted almost 30 years. They don’t make
‘em like they used to. But truth be told,
it isn’t nearly as powerful as the new ones and takes almost twice as long to
cook things. I am expecting many
explosions and boil overs as I get used to my newfound power. It had to go sometime. I offered it to my daughter and she wasn’t
really thrilled with its dependable though impotent character. I guess it is going off to the landfill,
sigh.
I have also been working on the design of a kitchen
backsplash. I wanted it to look like a
quilt, so I bought a few different tiles from kptiles.com to work with. These are 6X6 tiles that are printed with
china patterns for mosaics. I took the
tile I liked the most and went to the local Masonry Center where Kay helped me
to find some matching tiles in solid brights.
Now for the design…
I was able to copy the color swatches off of the tile
manufacturer site and pasted and enlarged them on Powerpoint slides so they
covered the whole page. I scanned the
printed tile and pasted several over a slide so that the pattern matched. I wanted to make sure that the pattern was
the same size on paper as would be on tile.
I trimmed the printed powerpoint slides and then cut them into shapes and glued them onto 1/16 inch graph paper trying to
leave 1/16 inch between the tiles for grout.
This was a very important step
because when I initially started with an 18 inch square, the patterned tile was
disproportionately drowned out by the solid color tiles.
Just the wrong scale in general. The 12 inch square is much better visually. Unfortunately, it will require more tile
cutting, but then I don’t know the meaning of the word simple…
When we get the bids back from the remodeler,
we’ll decide whether we will go forward with the project. I am excited because everything is finally coming
together, I hope...
