Spatula, oh spatula, where out thou?

AAARRGGGGHH, I just wanted the last bit of my yummy "lobstah" salad for lunch and this was the only spatula I could find! REALLY?

Yes that's right, a crummy little, bent up, melted, dollar store spatula...Ridiculous, I stomped up to the "gift room" to find one, afterall, I recieved every single kitchen utility tool that was ever invented...but all I found was this:

You got it lots and lots of bubble wrap AND this:

even MORE boxes...

So since it is Spring (well at least it feels like here in the Midwest today), I am going to think happy thoughts!

Our builder tells us, framing should be complete in two weeks. Crap, I guess that means we should stop procrastinating the brick & stone choice.

Anywho, back to happy thoughts, we have our appliances narrowed down to two brands for each appliance. The sneaky Eletrolux rep at the monstrosity of an appliance store we shopped at this weekend, convinced us we need Electrolux! They are oh sooo shiny and sleek!

Refrigerator, now this is a big one, one brand is significantly more than the other:

1)GE

2) Lux

Bar Fridge:
1) GE

2) Lux

Oh yay, that is a blue LED on the INSIDE of the fridge to illuminate my brewskis

Double convection oven
1)GE

2) Lux

Did you notice the pretty blue inside?

36" cooktop
1) LUX

2) GE

Dishwasher
1) KitchenAid (which is rated by consumer reports to be the QUIETEST) and is nice and big inside, we eliminated the Bosch because the inside is TEENY TINY

2) Lux which is rated at 45dB

Lastly Microwave..remember our microwave will be UNDER the island, do we get this cool drawer:

Or do I go with the "el cheapo" microwave since it will be under the island?

Hmmm...decisions decisions? I have mulled over forums, consumer reports, you name it, I just don't know what to do, this really shouldn't be such a monumental decision! (oh yeah, I never found a spatula, so I had to use my fingers)

**by no means is the blogger promoting or endorsed by the above mentioned brands, looking strictly for opinions or donations :)

Appliances! We need INPUT please!! (and thank you!)

Our house still is a skeleton of wood however, we just heard that appliances will be increasing in cost by 10-12% by May! Yikes! That's a lot especially since we have to buy a shiz-ton of appliances.
Here is an "artistic" representation of what our kitchen will look like from a bird's eye view...

I know it looks small, click on it to see details :) (The microwave will be in the island not on top of the island)

So we need a lot of appliances = lots of $$$$
1) Counter Depth Fridge
2) Microwave drawer or Conventional Microwave?
3) Double Wall Ovens
4) 36" Gas Cooktop
5) 36" Chimney Hood
6) Dishwasher-I don't even want to know it is RUNNING!!
7) Beverage/Bar Fridge
8) Warming drawer? (Maybe under the 36" cooktop?)

What are your favorite brands? What can't you live without?

By the way, here is what my kitchen looks like as of 3/9/2011...

How in the furck* will I fit all my appliance in this teeny tiny space??

*(thank you rantsfrommmommyland for the new word)

HOLY HELL we have a basement! ( framed walls and cement floors, OH MY!)

I have to say, I'm pretty excited about this, I grew up in a ranch with a "mini" basement. What's a mini-basement you ask? Well, see when I was a kid, I felt like the crawl space was a perfect size for me until I was about 10! I loved it, it had a secret entry (a carpet trap door in my parents' closet) and I always could find mini-spotted dinosaurs (salamanders) down there.

So in our home our basement floors have been poured and the basement framing has begun!

The WALK-OUT basement...

The walls of the basement (blankets are covering the cement to keep it toasty, warm and dry!)

How cute is my niece? Really? Thanks to Stephanie & Ryan for taking the pictures while we were out of town on business with our camera!

Dave went out to the site today and guess what he saw?? MORE WALLS!!???!? Yippee!
(I apologize for the quality of picture, but he took the camera out & it was dead, so he used his Blackberry Camera)

These are the walls of the master bedroom & bathroom..that long window is a beautiful transom window that I would like to be stained glass, the foreman almost fell over laughing when I told him that..I guess that means it would be expensive?

I'm still taking donations...

Snow, Cold, and Candy

As I sit here at my rented desk, in my rented house, looking out my rented window, at the rented (no longer welcome) snow, I am feeling a little stabby. The work on our home has completely come to a halt because of the snow and frigid temps.

Dave went out to the lot about 2 weeks ago and here is what he saw, WALLS!! SWEET, SWEET FOUNDATION WALLS!

This will be our beautiful walk-out basement

Looking from the garage side...

The next step would have been for the contractors to come in and add back-fill to the spots where there will be, well no-house, like under the garage and in between things so our house doesn't slide down the slope.

However, the 20+ inches of snow made everything look like this:

(thanks for the image, google image search)

Oh wait, that is Lake Shore Drive, when I was out of town, I'm still completely amazed that this happened. I blame it strictly on Chicagoan's stubbornness. "There is no way Lake Michigan will have 17-25 foot waves, I'm not dealing with taking the Kennedy or Elston home...it will be fine" Hence why they got stuck, literally it was freezing so fast that people's cars were glued to the road...I'm just glad most of my former bull-headed neighbors are safe. I miss you Chi-town!

So while I'm waiting for construction to begin again, I will sit here and eat all the non-white conversation hearts...

Now you know where all the good ones went!

Say a prayer for warm weather so that dastardly snow will melt and we can fill our ground with "fill" (whatever that is). Then I can get back to important things like kitchens...

Wooden Stairs, snow, and more

After busting my ass falling down 4 wooden stairs at our friend's house this weekend I have decided I'm willing to give up having wooden stairs installed in our new non-existent home. Sadly, I had only had 2 adult beverages by then(okay maybe 4), but in my defense I was wearing 4 inch heels. The bruise on my arse looks like I spilled a bottle of red wine on white carpet, it is brutal, it is painful to sleep, sit, stand, you name it. (I will spare you a picture of my bum.)

On that same note, I'm snowed OUT of home. I can't get back to the Chicagoland area because of the blizzard. I'm sure you haven't heard about it right? Snowmaggedon, Snowtilla, snow is snow, get over it we live in the midwest and I love blizzards, so long as I don't loose power. I however am in Charlotte (where there is a high of 60 degrees today! haha), jealous of those of you who are snowed in, while I sit here blogging, probably doing the same thing I would be doing at home. (What's wrong with me?)

Oh and by the way...progress on the house can't be made because of the snow, looks like we will move in maybe say, October 2012? What's your guess?

Tiles, Carpets, Tiles & Carpets & Flooring...OH MY!

On Friday we had our second appointment with Fashion Flooring, time to get within our allowances, since we DID NOT stay in our allowances for the kitchen. (I promise I will do a post about the kitchen as soon as we finalize our choices).

So I stayed at an amazing hotel this week in Savannah, The Bohemian, I wanted to do grays in my MB, low & behold, this bathroom was amazing! I believe that Gray is the decorator's new Tan/Beige. Check out these pictures from the bathroom in the room!
This one is from the hotel's website, mentioned above:

Now some close-ups from my Phone Camera:

Amazing Shower Floor Mosaic:

I am happy to report that we choose our wood floors! Hand-Scraped Asian Walnut! When we went in to work on budget, they had an amazing special on this particular floor! It is beautiful! I can't wait for you to see it!

We also still liked all of our choices for the master bathroom, powder room, and laundry room! We made the tile in the guest bath darker and choose a less expensive "frieze" for the upstairs bedrooms.

And guess what? We are almost in budget now!!! Yay!

We got DIRT!

Wow, a lot of progress was made on our house this week while I was out of town. The way my work & travel schedule looks our house should be done by the end of February! Right Brian?

At any rate, my husband was great and stopped by the lot every day to take pictures!

Monday:

Monday afternoon:

Monday Night (these are blankets to keep our ground warm...hey whatever works)

Tuesday the ground breaking was complete

Wednesday footers were poured, I deduct that footers keep the house in the ground :)

I flew home Thursday night, so guess what? You got it, work was stopped and no work was done Friday either, something about letting the concrete set... C'est la vie

Well I'm headed out of town Tuesday, so I'm guessing all sorts of stuff will be completed! Stay tuned, we received our kitchen, flooring, and bathroom quote, I may need to do a fundraiser to pay for all of the upgrades. Feel free to send me any extra change you have laying around :)