Brickhouse Hipster

Wow gang, sorry it's taken me a few days to post. Let's just say, tiling a kitchen floor is no joke! I'm just now getting all the mortar out from under my fingernails, but the floor itself looks awesome!
Here's a super flattering pic of me layin' it down...

The kitchen started to seem much larger than we remembered as time went on. Here we are, almost finished. And because I have a supremely awesome husband, when we got down to an area large enough for only one of us to work, he re-read Catching Fire to me to keep me sane!

Right: Fat Max box cutter for mortar scraping and general cutting; Top Center: Sponge for cleaning said pesky mortar; Right: Catching Fire by: Suzanne Collins for reading and wife sanity maintaining.

It turned out to be a longer process than we anticipated, but we learned a great deal!! Our biggest tips? Invest in a good pair of knee pads!! Your precious joints will thank you! Also, get the mortar mix exactly right! I'm considering devoting an entire post to the science of mixing mortar because, as it turns out, the right mix is EVERYTHING! We found this out after a particularly grueling evening with a too-thin mixture and no dry material left to thicken it up. The result, floating tiles that refuse to stay in place, thus throwing off the rest of the row and generally being a pain. But, we persevered and here's how it looks all clean and grouted.

Lowes: Canyon Slate Ceramic Tile

I'd love to show you the whole floor, buuuuut.....
Our brand new cabinets arrived today and they're occupying most of it! The in-laws will be here in a few days to help with the install, so look forward to that!! (I know I am!)

Make no mistake, a kitchen remodel is the true test of a marriage! I think we've recovered well from this weekend's subflooring adventure, though we're still pretty sore and groan-y. There were several trips to Lowes, the untimely death of our brand new chalk line reel, and lots of grumpiness and "I can't do this!" declarations (mostly from me) as we worked late into Sunday night, but we managed to escape largely unscathed. Being the newbie fixer-uppers that we are, we were clueless as to just how involved laying cement backer board would be and Kevin now thinks that the backer board folks are in cahoots with the screw manufacturers! (We counted 49 screws per a full panel.) But, it looks pretty good so far. We have a little more taping and mortaring to do this evening and then we can lay the actual tile!!

Pretty professional looking, no? Check out the new drywall under the window...we did that too!

I have to admit, even though this experience was pretty overwhelming at times, I'm still really encouraged and looking forward to laying the tile ourselves. It's amazing the perspective you get with a day of rest. We've also put a deposit down on a couple slabs of beautiful granite for the countertops. Man, I can't wait to see it all come together. Mostly, I can't wait to show it off!

Let's be frank for a moment, I'm new to this whole design and decor game. Living in apartments and rented houses for the last decade, I never got the sense that my living space was actually mine. And who wants to sink a bunch of money into decorating a place you might not even be living in next year? So, I slogged along with bare white walls and left over college dorm decor (purple butterfly tapestries are still hot, right?) and never really got my feet wet with fabrics and color combination and style.

Now that we own a house I find myself wanting it to be as awesome as possible, which means I've been doing a lot of research on how to whip it into shape! During said research, I noticed that designers use these handy little things called mood boards to create a color scheme and an overall, well, mood for a room. (Yes, mood boards = new to me. As I said, I've been living in an undecorated cave for the last 10 years.) But how can I get my hands on the expensive design software to make mood boards of my own? Turns out, no need. MyDeco.com has a make-your-own-mood-board design tool. And that, my friends is what I've been playing with for the last several days. (When I'm not working and sanding kitchen walls, of course.) Here's a little color combo sampler for the kitchen.

Clockwise from left: Wall color Valspar Sag Harbor (as close a match as I could find); Back splash tile; Granite countertops (hopefully); Floor tile Canyon Slate Ceramic tile; Center: Natural Cherry cabinets

It's a pretty awesome and free tool. While I searched for and uploaded these on my own, the site also lets you choose from photos from their sponsor shops. I'm also playing around with these colors for the master bedroom.

Gotta love those never ending projects!