There really hasn’t been a lot going on here since Marc
ended up being out of town for about ten days on his recent supervisory visit
to the projects. He travels during his time off over Sundays usually so did a
very long stretch with no days off so arrived home extremely tired. Since he is
salaried, there’s no watching the time clock on his job and he’s probably
easily working 60 hour weeks which is hard to keep up with when you’re getting
to be an old guy!
I had a good meeting with the Blenker representative to make
selections and decisions on the interior & exterior of the home and am into
deep consideration now of wall colors. So far I’m weighing in heavily on
grey-greens and grey-blues for those; I’m sick of whites, tans and beiges and
figure any dark colors are a real no-no in this climate since it is gloomy much
of the time. I’ve also been trying to narrow down some flooring choices knowing
that what I really want (real hardwood) isn’t going to happen this first
go-round so I’ll need to come up with something we can live with for a few
years. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the new choices in laminates which
they are now even making in things like look-alike slate.
If I end up getting my cabinet choice in the
kitchen*, I’ve chosen a very nice granite-look Formica which goes very well. I
actually prefer Formica over granite as I don’t like the coldness and hardness
of granite since I am fumble-fingers and often dropping glassware and plates.
Formica is much more forgiving! Plus, they have now come up with a way to
attach an under-mount sink so I am able to get the deep, one hole stainless
apron front sink I wanted. *This cabinet finish, being hand distressed and
glazed, is a whopping 40% up charge over other stain choices so the question is
whether we can truly afford these. To help out, I specified in the kitchen
design, that all uppers be open shelving which will actually be builder-built
and painted white. This should actually give more storage area and has the
added benefit of creating a nice open and airy look thus visually expanding the
space more even though this will be a great sized kitchen at around 11x20 feet.
The first photo shows the door style I’ve chosen and it will be on knotty alder
which will hopefully create the rustic look I am after. The second picture
shows my choice of counter top and the third picture shows the runner up. I
dearly loved this dramatic dark granite look, thought it went fantastic with
the cabinet sample and was so realistic
looking, but overall I thought it would just end up being way too dark for a
kitchen. I prefer a nice, bright kitchen, something cheery, rather than
weighty.
Marc finally has a weekend off so we will be working on moving more things from our apartment garage to our shop and the apple trees are now due for pruning and spraying before they bud. Wisconsin’s winter has been one of the hardest on record; we surpassed the 1910 record set for most amount of minus degree days, at 55 so far. We have about 28” of snow on the ground currently, with a little over 70” of snowfall recorded. We have averaged 20 degrees below normal temperature ranges since November. To say we’re ready for spring is a gross understatement! Bring it on!
