Thursday, May 6, 2010

Choices, Choices



Today we met with Josh in Lincoln City to make our choices on carpet, linoleum, cabinets, counter tops hard wood and trim. This is the stuff I've been waiting for...this is when I start to envision the home that we are creating. And when I start thinking on how I can take all our old stuff and revamp it a little to match new surroundings.

I occurred to us yesterday that we didn't know that kind of a "feel" or "theme" we were looking for in this new house. It was so easy to pick out furnishings a new things for our kitchen remodel in Portland. Our life in Toledo will definitely be a horse of a different color, so to speak. Mind you, I'm not putting down our soon-to-be hometown, simply pointing out what seem stylish to us in Portland may look a bit ridiculous in the wet lands of Toledo. Therefore, we thought the choices to be made today might be a little difficult.

It was really a piece of cake. In some ways, it was great to be given a certain number of options instead of endless ones. We talked over the choices that came with the Classic package and decided to upgrade to Adair's Traditions package. This gave me more choices in several areas. The hardest to choose on were cabinets and trim. We did an extra upgrade for hickory cabinets mostly for their nice showing of different hues and grains in the wood (visual interest!).

Trim, ah trim. This is a touchy, dear to our hearts subject after our house in Portland. That home has fake wood trim that not only looks bad anyways, but after remodeling our middle floor with nice bamboo floors and putting new cabinets in the kitchen, how do we put ugly fake trim back on??? Likewise, how do we shell out money for better trim without redoing the entire house? We had both set our minds to wanting clean, classic white trim next time around. Well, it was not part of either the Classic or Traditions packages and was over $2000 extra. Without saying so, both Matt and I were about to put our foot down and decide this was something we couldn't back down on when I had picked out everything else, Matt agreed to it but we were just stuck on our trim choices. Then Josh brings out a craftsman-style trim. Sold.


So although we are taking many different colors of wood and putting them together, we are putting faith in our assessment that they all look good together. Our kitchen in Portland was a contrast of light floors and medium-dark cabinets and we loved it. This time we are switching that up to dark floors and light cabinets with medium trim. I LOVE the floor-it makes me think of an old barn. Josh said he has just been waiting for someone to choose that, so I am glad we can give him the chance to see it live and in person in our kitchen!

We have a thing for red as the accent color in the kitchen, so I choose what I feel are some warm neutrals to go around the "pop" of color.

Our living room is based around this painting (its actually a pair) that Grammy and I bought Matt for his birthday many years ago. It has so many colors in it to pull out...some that have yet to be fully expressed in my decorating. So once again, I am hoping the warm neutrals I choose have a bit of their own presence while allowing me to put some pops of color in.

3 comments:

  1. So I'm looking at the picture of my choices and I don't feel like the colors came across very clearly...the carpet looks gray: what I actually chose is like a warm golden brown. Warmth people, that is what I'm after!

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  2. i love the earthiness of your choices, because you'll have the amazing natural surroundings in your sights when you're looking out from inside. all the greens and browns will be wonderful! oranges and reds are my favorite pops, too, so you know i love that idea!

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