Master Bath - The Finale

So, it has been ages since I've posted on my Blog. Honestly, by November we felt drained and overwhelmed with our master bath project, Christmas and a blizzard hit, and our winter here in Virginia continues to be crazy in case you don't watch weather news. We are currently shoveling out of blizzard #2. I was also uninspired due to our camera woes from 09 when two cameras died and the remaining ones were OK at best.

So here we are in February 2010, time to get my butt moving and get back, I hope, to posting with some regularity. Santa was nice enough to bring me a wonderful Cannon Rebel XSi for Christmas which has wiped away my photography depression. I've been playing a ton and have a lovely little macro lens on my birthday wish list this month.

So on to the Master Bath final reveal. This project seemed never ending and as almost all the work was done by my personal at-home contractor, well we can only move so fast or come up with so much funding all at once. We do have one more thing to complete and that is a backsplash, but we'll have more on that in a future post.

This bathroom remodel probably mixes my personal style the best of any room I've ever designed. If you've ever seen my home you'd know that I have a lot of vintage and traditional but I also love to pop in modern elements whenever I find something I like. This bathroom brings traditional (shower, floors), vintage (lights, shower, floor, accessories) and modern (vanity, storage, mirrors, rug) all together in I think a fairly cohesive design. It does not necessarily all go together when you look at the pieces individually, in fact before the vanity was in I was having serious misgivings that I picked correctly and perhaps it just would not work with the shower, but it flows so nicely with the modern and traditional and vintage elements that I really love it all together.

Master Bath Revisited:

Here are some pictures of what the master bath looked like when we first looked at our house - note all the interiors belong to the prior owners.

Looking into the bathroom from the bedroom, note a lack of door, wallpaper galore and carpet!! in the bathroom.

The double vanity with 80"s cabinet and hardware. The mirror is nice and large but no medicine cabinet. You can see the shower/toilet room from here.

Here is the smaller shower, toilet & linen closet room. We tore all of this out including the wall and closet.

The old double shower with a plastic base and ceramic tiles, the ones with disintegrating wallboard and mold hidden behind them.

As you can see the original bathroom had outdated 80's/90's wallpaper, vanity, etc. The sink and closet area was in one space and open to the bedroom while the shower, toilet and linen closet were in a small room in the back. We pretty much hated it and almost did not buy our house because of this space and the fact the basement was not finished.

The bathroom area is not large at all and is compounded by the fact that the closets share the space. We went through several sheets of graph paper modeling out different floor plans by moving the closets, sinks, shower & toilet in different configurations. We ideally wanted a walk-in closet separate from the bathroom, an overall bigger bathroom, and to make it separate from the bedroom space with a door. of all our scenarios several required permits due to moving all the plumbing and electrical, some required eating into our bedroom space which I wasn't crazy about and some would have used the existing washer/dryer space behind our bathroom requiring those to move inside the closet or down to the basement, again neither of which I was crazy about. Additionally the more full demo and moving of walls we would have to do required more $ and more time and potentially contractors and permits. So in the end after a ton of deliberation and input from others we decided to work with the existing footprint and to open up the space visually as much as possible.

The Reveal:

Here is our new bathroom! Even though we used the same footprint the space seems twice as big. We kept everything to their original placement but by removing the wall dividing the shower area , a large bulkhead over the sinks and the linen closet we were able to really open things up. Here is a play by play in pictures of what we did:

Long view in from the bedroom similar to the first picture in the post above. We added a door to the bedroom which makes the bathroom it's own enclosed space.

Looking back the other way towards the bedroom behind the new door. We added new pull out closet doors with iron hinges and handles - love those! The runner from Overstock.com is a pretty gray blue with bursts of texture, it coordinates with our shower mosaic. I believe this rug is sold out now. The lighting is reproduction vintage schoolhouse lights from rejuvenation.com. They are perfect in the space, clean lines using vintage shapes.

Here was the last wall standing in the shower demo.

My tile guy took the new bathroom approved cement-board to the ceiling and poured a concrete shower pan from scratch - he is pretty awesome. The tiles are all travertine from The Tile Shop, set in a subway pattern on the walls with a mosaic detail 3/4 way up and a contrasting floor. We salvaged the original shower doors by spray painting them to match the shower hardware.

After a lot of debate I took a cue from the 2009 HGTV Dream home and chose engineered hardwood flooring. If you research this there are differing opinions on putting any type of wood flooring in a bathroom but we really wanted a warm look for the floor and we felt continuing the travertine might look too cold and be too expensive. We chose an expensive sound proofing vapor barrier to go under the floor, you can see the blue edge of it peaking from under the floor. We are thrilled with how it looks and don't regret it at all. We chose Bruce Lock n' Fold in Brazilian Cherry.

Here is the floor all done, I was able to find a matching wood cover for our floor vent, you can just see it by the toilet. The long runner and a rubber backed rug in front of the shower protect the floor from getting much contact with water.

The area around the sinks had to be torn down and a bulk head with dropped lights removed so the ceiling would be flat throughout the space. My handy plumber/electrician moved the drains and electrical and added a second outlet so we both have one. New electrical for vanity lights was also added. The drywall presented a number of challenges when we found warped studs were used originally so it went up a bit wonky. At that point we hired some guys who did work on our house when we first moved in to do all the mudding, sanding and painting in the bathroom. That was a huge load off of us.

Here is the new vanity, it is quite modern. It is a floating vanity affixed to the wall and has no legs. It is longer than our old one by 12 inches with raised porcelain sinks. My live-in contractor is 6'4' and I am 5'8" and we always find normal sinks to be too low and troublesome for our backs. We chose this design so we could get the height where we wanted it and we love it - way less stress on the back. The vanity is all hardwood (we tested that by drilling holes through the insides for the pipes - serious hardwood!) and was purchased from Overstock.com as a set with the faucets, medicine cabinet mirrors and shelves all together. If we were purchasing these items separately we would have bought the hardware in an iron finish to be cohesive with the rest of the space but for now we are living with the polished chrome, secretly I kind of like them. The pretty blue jar is made of recycled glass from Spain.

2 of 3 closets. The first is my hubby's, mine looks pretty much the same except with an extra pullout basket, all 3 have a high shelf that is not visible in the pictures for extra storage. The second picture is the 3rd closet which is 60% clothes (long hanging and shelf items) with 40% for a linen closet. Having the 3 spaces in the end works much nicer than a walk-in closet. We each have our own space and the closets aren't even full yet so the organizer system worked wonders. I reviewed custom companies and came close to choosing easyclosets.com as their materials and designs were very nice. In the end we chose to save money and replicate our design done on the Easy Closet website by using the Lowe's line by Sauder. We did all 3 closets for less than the price of one closet through Easy Closets (California Closets would have been even more expensive). We are very happy with the look and organization and savings we got by doing it ourself via Lowe's. One last step will be changing over to all wood hangers this year, my plan is to get them from ikea. We did this for our daughter's closet and they look great and are very durable.

So this is the end of the review, lots of work done and now we have been decompressing and enjoying getting our bedroom back. Wonder what our poor bedroom looked like though all this mayhem? Here is an average day over a weekend when we were working on the remodel. Just keeping it real.

What To Do With Halloween Leftovers

If you have a bunch of chocolate candy left over from Halloween and are starting to think about tossing it out or bringing it to the office then try this fun recipe instead. When I first saw this post on Noble Pig I laughed and sent it to my resident candy expert and it was declared a must-try.

Please visit Noble Pig for the recipe I used. It is my favorite cooking blog, just yummy home cooking and I have yet to try anything I didn't love off of her site. Click for recipe here.

I used slightly less than 2 cups of chopped candy which included Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, M&M's, Peanut M&M's, Baby Ruth, Nestle Crunch, Whoppers, 1000 Grand, and Butterfingers. You can see the M&M's gave a little color to the cake. The only variation to the recipe is that I coated the bundt pan in cooking spray and sugar instead of flour.

Here is the batter with all the candy going in:

From Food

Here is a slice of the finished bundt cake. This was a real winner and it is fun trying to pick out what melty gooey candy you're eating.

From Food

No Spending Challenge: The End!

The ghouls and goblins arrived which heralded the end of October. Thank goodness.

I was not able to do the daily posts like I hoped to track everything, so here is the final tally of our attempt at significantly decreasing our spending:

Last Tally for Days 19-31:
Baseline Avg Spending Combined: $1,823.14
Actual Spending Combined: $605.98
Savings: $1,217.16

As you can see we were getting a bit tired in the second half of the month. I give major kudos to those bloggers who have done this hardcore and not spent a dime, it was tough for us. The majority of the $605 was spent on groceries, the liquor store (weekend company!) plus some miscellaneous stuff.

So how did we do overall? It wasn't a total bust though I am a little disappointed in how dedicated we were. Here is the final breakdown for October:

October Tally:
Total Baseline Avg Spending: $4,266
Total Actual Spending: $1,468
Total Savings: $2,797

Original Savings Goal: $3,000 ($203 short)

We spent only 34% of our average spending previously, which is certainly good. We came close to the $3000 target but fell a little short. We paid off 2 bills we wanted gone and that felt great.

Lessons Learned:

1. This is a lot harder than it looks, if you are trying to be strict.

2. Set a firm food budget. For me this was the hardest area to control. I have a very hard time keeping the grocery bill to a minimum mostly because I buy a lot of organics or sustainably raised food which costs more, but I think is worth it. Hubby & kids seemed to be a sense of panic whenever the pantry got too low (like i was trying to starve the family or something). I also just really enjoy food and cooking so I always want to try new things, hard for me to say no!

3. You need to have a plan for the unexpected. We had a few house issues that cost money, not a lot but still things we had to stop and decide what was worth spending money on and where do you draw the line?

4. Everyone needs to be vested in the process. I think we were both pretty good at this, but we probably could have been better at deciding to go really hardcore, i.e. spend less than we did.

5. Plan for kids and their expenditures. We told our kids what we are doing and why and they were sort of OK about it, only whining occasionally. But we had a few times where they had activities costs we were unsure of how to approach. So this is what I did:

Did NOT Buy: school pictures, clothes or shoes, toys. DID Buy: Friend's birthday present for a party, some small special food requests not on the menu, school lunches, 1 school party: tickets & & food. I'm not sure we really tackled this area the best though it could have been worse, I fended off a request for something that costs money almost daily.

6. Be concrete over what is discretionary and what is not. Medical costs hit us a couple times and it wasn't something we planned for but I optioned to add it as a bill and not discretionary. Car maintenance is another area we struggled with (became a bit of both discretionary and non).

The Fallout:

All in all we are really happy we did this, it proved we can spend less and save money. In fact we've been talking about doing this maybe quarterly, January for sure (post-Christmas freeze).

Looking at what we spent what we saved and how tight things felt, we decided to set a goal of saving $1000 a month going forward. I think this is doable as long as we don't go back to our old ways or don't have some big expenditures we are unprepared for. That $1k would be going to an emergency fund to help pay for the things that creep up on us. Also, we are planning on traveling to either Italy or Egypt next year and both options are expensive so we have a lot of money to save up in the next 6-9 months.

Happy Saving!

If You Ever Wonder if There are Still Gypsies in the World

I stumbled across this blog called The Hermitage (a blog of a nomadic couple living in the UK) quite by accident and I was immediately transfixed. I cannot even say for sure if it is the writing style and the way she tells stories about their life, the pictures which are wonderful, or the gypsy-like home they live in, or maybe their nomadic life which is such a far cry from my own. What I can say for sure is that the artwork is wonderfully detailed, whimsical, and yet showing a great depth of emotion. Even if it isn't your taste (it is mine) you cannot deny Rima is incredibly talented.

Please take a few minutes to check it out and just try to imagine yourself living a modern day nomadic life in the UK, could you?

All pictures from intothehermitage.blogspot.com

Closet Organizers

As we take the month of October to ponder how to finish the rest of our master bath and closets I am a bit overwhelmed at the closet organizer choices. We were initially leaning toward tearing everything out and adding an Ikea Pax system but the tear-out costs on top of the closet cost is making us think twice. So here is some closet eye candy (well maybe it just all looks sweet to me). Any loves?

California Closets

Closet Tailors

Elfa from The Container Store

Elfa from The Container Store

Easy Closets

Easy Closets as on livinginsmallsizes.com

Easy Closets from jeanette.blogspot.com

Space Masters

California Closets

Easy Closets Pantry

California Closets

Portland Closet

This last one is my personal eye candy, would I love to have that closet! Not to mention the shoes and purses it contains...yum.

Master Bath Mood Board

I've been playing around with the mood board concept for decisions on our master bath. Now that the shower is done we are trying to decide on how we want to finish the rest of the space so we can determine the costs and save up for what we really want. Of course what we really want is pricey so we are trying to balance quality finishes and be as cost effective as possible.

Our master bath is essentially a long hallway, the bath part is fairly small though we have opened it up as much as possible. The closet area is all part of the bathroom though we could have closed it off we decided it would make both spaces feel too small and want to keep it as open as we can. I am going for a mix of modern and traditional.

What do you think, I'd appreciate any suggestions!

From Master Bath Remodel

Except for the shower picture all of these come from websites where I sought inspiration. I think the more modern vanity is my favorite though it has less storage, I'm a bit on the fence about that. The closets are another area we are hotly debating. We want to tear them all out and use ikea pax similar to what you see above only with an opaque glass door. I love their floor to ceiling closets but between the cost and work of a tear-out and then the cost of the closets it is a lot. Our other option is to leave them as is (3 separate closets with traditional sliding doors) and just get new inserts. It would cost us a lot less but I don't think we'd be nearly as happy.

No Spending Challenge: Days 12-18

Sorry for not posting last week, it was a busy home and work week and time got away from me. We are still moving along with our challenge, in fact I moved $1400 into my not so secret savings stash yesterday which was an accumulation of the money we HAVE NOT SPENT this month - yea! Check out our Month Tally in the middle column.

My end goal for this month is to pay off my credit card bill and then focusing on pushing as much cash as I can back into savings. Boy this frugality and saving stuff is not easy for us. I wish I could say it is, I really do but being frugal is not inherent to my nature. We also want to finish the master bathroom project but have committed to saving up for what we want first, so some savings will apply to that (because I do need a toilet back some day!).

Tally for Days 12-18:
Baseline Avg Spending Combined: $1,073.04
Actual Spending Combined: $217.30
Savings: $855.74

So what was that $217 spent on and why did we spend over $1k on average before that?

The baseline was driven by 2 vacations and a wedding which all had at least some or all of the expenses occur during this time in the month - yikes!

Our expenses in the last week:
My Hungry Man ate 2 lunches out while working in DC (he was great about taking his lunch most days but missed a couple). Regular groceries which were less than $80 this week for a family of 4, that is of course subsidized by my Polyface Farm meat order and the pantry. The most expensive were some car parts due to a dead headlight and worn brake pads. The in-house auto mechanic will do the work and we figured it was probably cheaper than a ticket.

No Spending Challenge: Day 11

Just a quick hit today. We spent $19 on copper plumbing fittings for a leaking pipe, there was no postponing that one! The pipe is now fixed which is a relief.

Tally for Day 11:
Baseline Avg Spending: $147.20
Actual Spending: $19.00
Savings: $128.20

No Spending Challenge: Days 8-10

Well things are clicking along with our savings now. Yesterday was a good day as we spent $0. Those days seem few and far between. I am finding as this goes that it is a lot harder than it sounded initially and not so easy to just not spend any money at all, at least with kids in the house. That said we are starting to make progress overall. Today was grocery shopping day and I totally blew my budget which is to stay under $100, I wound up spending $138. There were a few factors driving that, but the biggest one I think was that I did not use my calculator adding everything up as I went. Using a calculator (I use my phone if I forget it) makes such a huge difference in what you spend, if you've never done this try it and see if you start really thinking twice about what is going into your cart. Next week it will be back to the calculator for me.

Tally for Days 8-10:
Baseline Avg Spending Combined: $634.77
Actual Spending Combined: $161.40
Savings: $473.37

Quick Bathroom Cabinet Remodel

Before I attempted my kitchen cabinets using Caromal Colours paint I had done a test run on the vanity in my half bath. It was a pretty standard builder grade oak cabinet from the 80's, just like my kitchen. You can read here about how I discovered and became intrigued by Caromal Colours paint last year when shopping in Occoquan, VA. I picked up a jar of Peppercorn textured basecoat paint which is an almost black color.

Just like with my kitchen cabinets, I only washed the cabinet, I did not remove the door or hinges. I did tape off the inside so it would have a nice clean edge when opening the cabinet. I did this in one evening while watching TV in between the 2 coats I applied (this used roughly 1/3 jar paint). It was a super quick and easy renovation and I think it really transformed the cabinet.

The mirror above the cabinet was a bright gold color left by the prior owners. I hand painted this with a combination of pewter and black paint from Michael's to give it more of an antique look and to coordinate better with the cabinet. I then replaced the old brass cabinet handles with a chunky modern iron handle.

All in all a quick remodel for $35 in paint (well less really because I did not use the whole jar) and $20 for new hardware.

Here is the before (sorry for the bad shot, taken before we bought our house):

From Chancellor Old Photos

Here is the after:

From A Virginia Home Post

From Chancellor Dr

Fabulous Finishes Highlights my Blog!

Check out Fabulous Finishes, they did a nice write up of my blog and my kitchen renovation using Caromal Colours paint.

Pretty Cool!

You can read the post here.

No Spending Challenge: Days 4-7

I am playing a bit of catch up today on the No Spending month calculations. If anyone out there in blog land is keeping track, well we are still moving along, albeit slowly. So instead of listing every day, I am summing it up.

Tally for Days 4-7:
Baseline Avg Spending Combined: $340.38
Actual Spending Combined: $250.83
Savings: $89.55

This included an order from Polyface Farm for my meat order, this was expected so no unplanned spending there though the overall pounds were higher than I anticipated and raised my expected cost (but I also got more meat, so OK). I also had an unplanned trip to Richmond due to a work computer issue and ended up buying lunch out (and a great lunch it was!) with my co-workers. So all in all we didn't go too far off track but more than I would like. I plan on trying to replicate the curry chicken salad, the hands down best I've ever had, at home on a future date.

From the Polyface order I decided to make a quiche tonight. My mother in law made some pretty inspiring quiches last month and I've always wanted to make one, especially seeing as the pre-made ones at Wegmans cost $8. It was my first attempt and it turned out pretty darn good. The egg yolks were such an orange color, nothing like an egg you buy in the store. I am looking forward to frying or scrambling them up in the morning for the kids.


For the quiche I decided to wing it with a little guidance from Paula Deen on the ratios and oven temp. I oven roasted some Shady Brook Farms turkey breakfast links and once cooked chopped them up. I also chopped up 2 green onions. For the egg mixture I combined 7 medium eggs (the only size Polyface had, but if you have larger use 1 or 2 less), about 1/2-3/4 cup whole milk, an assortment of Whole Foods cheese I had lying about in the fridge that I shredded to rougly 1/2 cup (mozzarella, fontina & gouda). I also added 3 Tbsp of some leftover bechamel sauce I had made to go over some broccoli the night before. That one was on a whim but I think it added some nice flavor. I used a whole grain pre-made spelt pie crust from Wholly Wholesome that I already had in the freezer. I started with the sausage on the bottom, green onions next and then poured in the egg mixture. It went in the oven at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes (bake until middle is set). To accompany the quiche I sauteed zucchini from the farmers market. I had another whim with those and added some curry powder along with the usual salt & pepper and Italian seasonings. Wow, what an interesting but great add for zucchini, a new staple recipe.

I was a bit nervous about the spelt pie crust because it was a pre-made frozen shell and without all the added fat & preservatives normal pre-made shells have I figured it would be crumbly or taste blah, however it got very good reviews from the family and I would totally buy them again for another dinner just like this, or perhaps a fruit pie. Looking at the ingredients and then comparing to Pillsbury, which would be a grocery store standard, I can't help but be glad it tastes good - which would you rather eat? (Thanks to Wegmans for listing product ingredients!)

Organic Spelt 9" Pie Shells
Organic Whole Spelt Flour (Wheat), Organic Palm Oil, Water, Organic Cane Sugar, Sea Salt

Pillsbury Pet-Ritz Pie Crusts, Regular
Enriched Wheat Flour (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), partially hydrogenated lard (adds trivial amount of fat) with BHA and BHT added to protect flavor, water, sugar, whey, salt, baking soda, sodium metabisulfite (preservative), colord with yellow 5 and yellow 6

I am planning a post on sustainable food as well as Polyface Farms soon! If you have not read Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, I stongly encourage you to do so, I have learned so much from it. Polyface is featured in the book as a sustainable agriculture farm and I happen to be oh so lucky enough to live in the same state!

Shower Remodel Complete!

I've mentioned a few times the shower remodel we undertook 6 months ago. Yes 6 months is a long time, too long. If we were solely focused on the shower it would have been done much sooner, but work, kids, summer vacations and starting school in the fall all created a much slower pace than we would have wished for. All that said, it turned out just beautifully and my Tile Master (yup, I promoted him from just the The Tile Guy) should seriously take this up as a second job.

So here is what we started with when we bought our house a little over a year ago. Sorry they aren't better photos, but you get the picture. It wasn't a terrible shower, but not great either. It was 3/4 high cream ceramic tile with a molded plastic base. Our shower is a double, basically the size of a tub but without the tub. We debated quite a bit adding the tub but neither of us are big bathers and we enjoyed the large double shower more. The real issue was it was poorly constructed over regular sheetrock and when we bought the house we did not know of all the water damage behind the tiles.

From Chancellor Old Photos

From Chancellor Old Photos

And here is the new shower! It is all travertine marble with bronze hardware, the tiling goes up to the ceiling now and is laid in a subway tile fashion with the mosaic insert about 3/4 high on the wall. There is a small bench for sitting and 4 shelves for shampoos, etc. We decided to reuse the existing shower doors and spray painted them bronze, we were pretty psyched to see how well the final paint job matched. If you look closely you can see the recently promoted Tile Master showing off his handywork. Yes, that is the look of sheer relief on his face.

From Master Bath Remodel

From Master Bath Remodel

From Master Bath Remodel

So, did you notice all that happiness on the tile master's face? That picture was taken last night. I did not take a picture of his face when this happened this morning in the hallway shower we've all been using during the remodel...but I think you can imagine it...

From Chancellor Dr

No Spending Challenge: Day 3

I am starting to think I should have named this the 'Minimize Spending Challenge' because I have yet to hit a $0 or No Spending day. It is only day 3 so I have hope. Our expenses today were from a $5 donation to high school kids looking to sponsor their sports team. It is really hard to say no so we gave them the last cash we had on hand. The rest was for caulk for the shower. We desperately want it done by tomorrow and the 2 tubes we had were not enough, we needed 2 more.

Tally for the Day:
Day 3 Baseline Avg Spending: $132.53
Day 3 Actual Spending: $21.63
Savings: $110.90

From Blog

For dinner tonight I was inspired by Michael Ruhlman's recent contest for the best from scratch BLT's. It was mouthwatering looking at the contest winner photos - check them out here. So for dinner tonight we had BLT's on homemade focaccia with nitrate-free bacon, organic lettuce & tomatoes. Oh, they were so good, literally out of this world good. The foccacia came out a lot thinner than I expected and I even made it smaller than the recipe called for. It may be my yeast was old, I'm not sure. I also whipped up a pizza dough that is now in the fridge waiting for tomorrow night, so we'll see if that one seems off too. Regardless it still tasted great. I cut the foccacia like a pizza and sliced each piece in half lengthwise to make 2 pieces of toast, layered it with a yogurt ranch and caesar blend (I don't like mayo on a sandwich) the bacon, lettuce, thick sliced tomatoes and a small piece of havarti cheese. This is just a quick guess on cost, I didn't get my trusty calculator and the receipts out because it's been a really busy day. I estimate (per serving) $1.25 for the bacon, $0.16 for the lettuce, $0.40 tomatoes, $0.10 dressing and $0.30 for the havarti. This totals to $2.21 or $8.84 for the 4 of us.

Kitchen Inspirations

I'm taking a little break from finance talk to show you my kitchen inspirations. Early on in this blog I showed off my mini kitchen remodel when we painted our existing standard oak kitchen cabinets and an antique china cabinet to give our 80's kitchen a little more interest. You can see that post here.

Ever since then, I've been dreaming of my real kitchen, the one with new cabinetry, stainless appliances and lots of countertop space because I love to cook. I was always vexed by the layout of our kitchen because our house is not small but the kitchen feels smaller than it should be given the space. And voila! I saw this kitchen and a concept was born.


When I saw this picture I knew what we could do, which is to flip the existing layout and use the entire length of the longest wall which is only half used today, remove the eat-in dining area and add a long large island like the one above. It essentially takes my kitchen now shoved in one half of a rectangle and uses the entire rectangle. Yeah I know it's a hard concept to visualize, sorry. Once I'm done with my online layout planning I'll share so you can see what I really mean. This project is a couple years in the future, though I secretly hope it is only a year away. I can dream and scheme and save till then and it will happen. In the meantime here are more pictures of my inspiration kitchens. I think you can pick out the theme...

From Brooklyn Limestone Blog

Source Unknown


Source Unknown

Sorry for all the unknown sources, I added these pictures to my inspiration file a while ago and I've lost track of where they came from, but if you know give me a holler and I'll add them.