My kitchen - the finished picture...

It really has been an age between posts ... and I have actually had a lot to blog about, but somehow, I have not been able to take the time out to sort out the material and post something...Till now, that is..

Before I start posting about my new 'venture', though, I thought it was better to update the final picture of our kitchen. We moved into our renovated home and it is a dream come true for all of us.. of course, it will be a work in progress for yet some time to come, since we will be furnishing the living room and other rooms at our leisure...

And I thought, I would start by posting about the biggest change in our home - the kitchen... !!

I wanted the cabinets a dark walnut colour mainly because I love it..and also with a practical purpose in mind... little sticky fingers would make any light-colour cabinets high maintenance.

We had the tiny dining table and chairs we bought about 8 years back..but somehow , i feel that the backsplash, floor and dining set actually complement each other , even though the shades are absolute contrasts..

The floor tiles..which I love... and the L-shaped kitchen.

Our choice of decorative lighting...

Lamp shade we chose for the master bedroom, accent wall.

Our little one chose this for her room... :D. It is actually a ceiling light, but we decided to use it as a wall light.

Here it is , in her 'pink' room. The white part of the wall will have a mural, hopefully....!!! The rest of the wall are fully pink . This particular shade was called 'rose lace' and looks great.

Our hall ceiling was painted a rich wine colour, with the surrounding wall, a pale n sunny yellow. We are pleased with dome shaped ceiling lamp and the simple wall lights.

Absolute novices when it came to lighting, but we decided to go with our gut feelings ...yet another consideration was the ease of maintenance. So we decided not to go for chandeliers and shades that could gather lot of dust.

W.I.P in my kitchen - again !!!

Another close-up of my granite - sorry, couldn't resist ...!!! Things have been speeding up a bit now... we can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak ....

My double bowl, corner sink in the process of being installed... the workers were very messy at this point, but they did do a good job of cleaning up ...

This was done today.. the kitchen backsplash has been installed and I am well pleased with how it complements the granite .
Yet another close-up of the backsplash tiles and granite ....
And after one coat of the wall-paint called Milk Chocolate... I thought it was a good name for a kitchen-wall paint ...!!! Though, I did have a slightly more chocolatey colour in mind..

So friends, please give your verdicts ....

Modular kitchen - fitted the carcass

The kitchen carcass has been fitted .. the tall unit, recess for the microwave, and corner , where the double-bowl sink will be fixed.

Am just having an L-shaped kitchen and have kept overhead cupboards to a minimum, to have more space. I have been feeling trapped in tiny kitchen so long, that for me, space matters more than anything else. the way I have planned things, all my stuff should fit well in the cabinets provided. Right now , it looks very light and airy... and the cabinets are mostly dark wood.

Still, hopefully it wont give the congested feeling that I have come to dread....!!

This portion comes after the corner . The chimney and hob will come after the overhead cabinets.

This is my sister in law's kitchen . I chose the dado/backsplash tiles for her. Her cabinets are Mahogany and Golden oak. The tiles we chose were an exact match to the red-tinted wood, but when they arrived, they were a shade lighter than the samples...I picked the light coloured tiles so that the red tiles do not overwhelm, and asked them to be put up in a checkerboard pattern... I think they look great..but maybe I am biased , so would like to know what YOU think ...!!

A few things other than the tiles ...

The Vitrified tiles that we have chosen for the entire house, except kitchen and bathrooms...

The granite for my kitchen counter top..I liked it so much, that I stopped worrying about matching the cabinets to the counter top ..!! So now, you will have to give the verdict once the finished kitchen snaps are posted ...!!

The grills for the windows were put in this week.. This one is Ichu's bedroom window.

The bay window looks great, in my opinion ...
The exterior of our home, a bit tidier now ... the first coat of paint is done, except for a little portion in the front, where a covered motor used to be.. once the pipelines are re-laid, the motor will also be relocated and the first coat will be done.

Tiling - part 2

The next installment ...!! this is our hall room, with a lovely beige vitrified tile - the story of how I got this is funny ....

I loved this particular colour and design from the beginning .. but both shops we approached told me that it was not in stock, unavailable..so i actually put it off my mind, and went for something else... we r tiling all the rooms, except the utility, kitchen and bathrooms, with this particular tile.. if you notice, all the rooms open into the hall..so this way, the entire house would look bigger ...and it was less of a pain this way !!!

SO we ordered 65 boxes of the tile I chose, which was actually a light straw colour with a light-brown design ... a week after the tiles were scheduled to arrive, we find out that there is no stock available for another 1 and half months...!! so away we go to the main office ... they say the same thing and it was all gloom and doom... then they asked us if we would consider choosing another one...and they point to a few options, my original choice, the first among them!!!!!

So we 'magnanimously' decided to accept this one in exchange and came away...

This is my kitchen tile - Looooove it... wanted and earth/ terracota type and I jumped for joy when i found this one.. It is laid in a diagonal pattern . The small opening that lay beyond connects to my work table and bay window area, where the same tiles will continue in a normal pattern.

the floor of our guest bathroom, with the washing machine nook raised a bit. None of the floors have been grouted as yet ..

Tiling - part 1

Eons after the last post , I get to show something - !!!!

Progress is slow, with mainly walls being plastered , the electrical and plumbing works done ..(not interesting stuff for me ..!!), etc etc...

Now comes the interesting part ..the tiles... it is unbelievable, the kind of hiccups that can happen between the choosing and the laying of tiles...

Clash in delivery schedules, logistic problems, breakage... after all those issues, we are still left waiting with bated breath, for the main floor tiles and the wall tiles of one bathroom..

Two bathroom wall tiles have been laid, while the Kitchen tiles will be done hopefully by the end of the week...

Our modular kitchen has arrived in pieces and is awaiting assembly in the dusty site. ...

The guest bathroom wall tiles - one wall is rust brown while the other is an off- white tile, with rust brown flecks on it.

The rust brown tiles are actually 300 x 300 floor tiles, and they will be continued on the floor.

With great difficulty, I persuaded the contractor to lay the 445 x 300, rectangular off-white tiles 'lying' down, so they would align with the rust brown tiles.....!!

The rest of the 3 walls are the lighter tiles.

Our master bathroom - the 1 row of dark tiles below are bronze tiles and I have chosen 445 x 445 floor tiles too, to match them exactly.

I love dark floors for bathrooms. the wall tiles are Ivory , with highlighters , also bronze, to tie up the two colours. Three walls have the highlighters in the exact centre.

I was wondering if many people have the same kind of painful experiences, while dealing with the tile suppliers... Do let me know ..!

My work space...

It is slowly taking shape.... This is my work space.. and it is right next to the bay window. The doorway on the left leads to our daughter's room . There is a window behind , which gives great light.

And to the left side, is the kitchen. I have just left an opening in the wall between the two rooms. so I can get from this space to the kitchen, without the bother of a door.

The picture given below, gives you an idea of what I plan for my work space.
This will not be a precise picture, and the two spaces given below also have some things I like . The above picture may be closer with respect to the dimensions. I will be putting in a granite work top and a granite top for the bay window. I foresee a lot of quality time with our daughter here :)
Like the dual-level work top and the colours of the wall. I am not a big fan of white in my space, because it requires extra maintenance. But I can definitely appreciate it ..!!!!
I like the cheerful look of this area, though this is more of a needle craft area. I like the storage cupboards.

Slow progress...

Wow ... an entire month passed by, and a New Year started since my last post...

I hope all of you celebrated the New Year. Wishing a Happy and prosperous year ahead to all my friends and family.

The work on our home seems like an endless project on some days...but it is slowly taking shape... the pics i have were taken a couple of weeks back, and there has been a bit of progress hence, so I will be posting more pics shortly ....

The kitchen window with the wooden frame. This will be the dining area. I decided to confine my cooking area to the diagonal area . It will be an L-shaped kitchen and after so much planning and stream-lining, I hope that I have made enough space for all my stuff!!!

My favourite area...the bay window.. it connects to the kitchen so I maybe spending a lot of time here.

This is the walk-in wardrobe in the master bedroom. i am quite excited to see how it will all turn out. there is a loft to store stuff and we plan to put in a few pull out shelves and lot of rods for the clothes. Haven't yet finalized the plan...

Since everything happens at snail's pace and I am kind of pre-occupied with the kitchen design right now ....

Have decided to go with a dark oak colour for the kitchen cabinets... which has always been my choice...no matter how much I try to change my mind, I finally stick with that ...so that is it ..!!

Now with the Pongal festivities this week, it will be another week of delay - all workers go to their native villages for the holidays.. this time, a legitimate excuse for the delay ...so the next stage may well get over only by the end of the month !!!