Monday, March 5, 2012

Some Things Say "Pick Me, Pick Me"


Sitting here thinking that my blog has died because we aren’t slaving away on the house and I have nothing to write about, I stumbled upon an interesting blog in my Inbox. www.pushingsocial.com  My blog is taking a new direction.  I kept thinking I had to write about the progress on the house, but my dream, my life IS the NEWA Experience, not just the house building portion of our lives.


First of all, let me share that there has been progress on the house.  We brought the last cabinet home from storage, a big, tall pantry style cupboard that houses the microwave.  It is a stand-alone cabinet, so there was no hurry in installing it.  We didn’t have a microwave, so what was the point?  Well, I ordered a microwave and then there WAS a point.  The microwave came, along with the expensive trim kit (almost as much $ as the microwave), to finish the stainless steel built-in look.  

There was also opportunity with the cabinet.  I’ve told you before that our kitchen cabinets came out of a two year old house in Reno.  Although they look brand new, there were some very minor blemishes created from installing them and uninstalling them and then installing them again; (smile) especially when you remove and reinstall built-in appliances.  

Additionally, we didn’t reinstall the cabinets exactly as they sat in their previous home.  For instance, the two tall pantry-type cabinets were side by side in the Reno house and we decided to split them up and install them across the kitchen from each other here in NEWA.  This means that the sides will need to be finished.  (The unfinished sides are made of melamine like the cabinet interiors.)  In order to undertake this task, it is necessary to know what kind of wood we are working with.  So on Saturday, on our way to Spokane, we stopped off at Woodworker’s Network.  

Woodworker’s Network is one cool store.  It is located 6-8 miles south of Colville on Hwy 395 on the way to Spokane from here.  If you like wood, it’s a fun place to shop.  What we found out on this trip is that instead of alder kitchen cabinets, ours are made from cherry!  Much more expensive!  We also found out that you can get by using alder and staining it to get the same look for less expense.  

Additionally, on the larger areas, like the sides of the pantry cupboards, the guys at Woodworker’s Network will glue and plane alder wood for us as a less expensive alternative to either cherry or alder plywood!  Imagine that.  Seek and you shall find.  We will also order our kick plate material this way, along with door and window trim.  Kick plate is the finish material that goes on the base of the cabinets where they meet the floor.

Speaking of seeking and finding, I found this awesome pair of wood pieces at the store that I could not resist.  They are basically cut from a pine tree that had a burl type of growth on it.  The two pieces are ‘slices’ or a matched set.  I can’t wait to figure out what they are going to be in our house!  We are playing with a mantle of sorts behind the wood stove OR- a type of shelf above the bathroom sink.  Not sure, but whatever they become has got to be something neat.  Daniel also picked up some great turning wood at the store.

Finally, I ordered my last two light fixtures for the upstairs bathroom.  If you’ve read my stories, the upstairs or “my” bathroom has already gone from purple to rose in color and the vanity is a chestnut color with a granite top and I’ve had a time finding the perfect lights.  I did see some I liked online a while back, but felt they were too expensive.  My heart kept going back to them though.  So when I saw them on another website ON SALE, I couldn’t resist.  Don put them up yesterday and they match the vanity perfectly.  I absolutely love them.  Don even said the rose color looks better when he had been bugging me to paint it over again.
 
Now, if I could just get him to get excited about installing my tub, I would be in heaven.  He says that living room trim comes first.  I am a patient person, I’ll wait.  We are still going round and round with kitchen tile samples, but nothing is saying “pick me, pick me” yet.

I guess my blog didn’t change directions today.  And I didn’t think I had any house stories left in me.

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