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.

The Little Sprout

I have been waaaay too late to announce the arrival of 'the Little Sprout' into our home ...!!!

It all happened when I entered a contest, on Muse's Facebook page, never imagining I would win.. !!!

I congratulated another winner, and then , I got a message from Muse on my page, that I was one of the winners..!!! I sent a mail to muse with my mailing address... and then went to Kerala for the weekend. While there, my neighbor in chennai, called to tell me I had a parcel from US, and she had recieved it on my behalf... needless to say, I could not wait to rush over...

And there it was, waiting for us..........!!!

nestled inside , was this adorable little book....

Signed by The Muse, my friend and superb word-smith....I jumped for joy. She had also sent a personal card to me and i was overwhelmed....
And another first.... A first edition ... my hands were shaky when I took the picture !!
Now.... need I go on??????? Doesn't THAT smile say it all..........???????

Click the link for my review on Shelfari

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.

Beading experiment - Anklets

I have been experimenting with beading, so started with something simple . My daughter has outgrown her silver anklets and she wanted to wear anklets 'urgently' ....!!!

So i just made these with some pale pink and silver coloured beads, linked them on a silver-coloured wire and attached the hook and chain clasp. I have no idea of the gauge of the wire and the shop attendant had no idea. If there is a way to accurately find out the gauge of the wires, please let me know.

Also added a few bells I detached from a pendant I had for ages. What's an anklet without bells for a little girl?

So what's the verdict?

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 !!!