Caesarstone and Various Ramblings

Today i'm armed with the Caesarstone book.





I'm amused that it's the same book I was given in 2008 when we did our bathroom renovation ( below ).

Wook at my baybee!
Isn't he gorgeous?
He turns 5 tomorrow ♥





Anyway, enough of the motherly schmo .. back to the reno..
( See what I did there? )


In 2008 I chose Ginger. 
This year, we're going more subtle .. which is hard because I naturally gravitate to high contrasty things.  I can *admire* your white-on-white-on-white decor at YOUR house ( or your white-on-white-on-white with a smidge of pale cream ), and I often do .. but for myself ...

Look, i've lived for years in imperfect homes and have learned to make do and improvise.  One of the BEST things i've enjoyed about imperfect homes is that you can't ruin them, and you can play with them.  It's like an old favourite shirt versus that $2k designer gown you bought.  Whereas a splash of paint on your shirt is fine and kinda blends in with the grass stains and the cake mix .. that designer gown is tres tres precious, so there's no jumping on that sofa, kids.

In old homes, you can paint your bathroom blue one day, or paint your back door emerald green.  It's a temporary lift, and colour is fun.  I loved my emerald green door, and the blue bathroom sure rocked the khaki that preceded it. 

I must find a pics somewhere ( pre-digi days, on filum peoples, filum! ). 


Last night I found a hot raspberry laminex chip and told the kids we should use it in the kitchen.



But alas, I have to be a bit more grown-up when i'm spending oodles of money. 
I have to be more classic, more enduring, more .. beige.

And that's ok too, becuase I quite like a beige/white/black palette ( which is what i'm doing ).
It allows me to pick up colour in accessories and not be shut into something i'll regret in two years time.  I can still be whack in my greenhouse and play with my colour pots out there, and bring in new stuff as I fancy. 

After all these years, I still love a red sofa, and my jeweltones are back in vogue too.


So these are the colours i'm thinking for our kitchen island.  It's a "waterfall" island which means the pretty extends and falls down the sides, like the pic below from Caesarstone in NIMBUS.





NIMBUS is one of the colours I am considering, but I haven't seen any in slab form yet.. just in little tile chips.  I'm going to take a look tomorrow.  Am unsure about the big chips vis teeny tiny little chips thing over a big area .. it's something you can't glean from a chip.

Colours i'm considering:




As you can see, there's a decision to be made re: warm vs cool as well.  I'm hoping some nice chunky slabs will sort that one out.  ATM i'm thinking either Nimbus or Nougat .. we'll see .. we'll see..

What next?
Plumbing is in and the sparkies were there yesterday. 
We need to buy an extraction fan for the stove STAT to the cabinetmaker can build his framing to fit perfectly.

Tomorrow I will be buying the rangehood and checking our lighting.  Schweet!


xx
Lea

Visit to the Cabinetmakers

Had to pop over to the cabinetmakers today.  He had made up a 'mock' kitchen for me to move around in ( basically widths of board sized to spec propped up to the dimensions of the kitchen plans )

It's a really good way to get a feel for sizing - Can we narrow this a bit? 
If I take 100mm off here, can I add it back over here?  Will that be big enough?

He has other boards at 900mm and 600mm to replicate the standard sizes of ovens/cooktops/dishwashers and sinks etc .. and for me especially, who is coming from a 1metre TOTAL kitchen workspace, and is worried the draftsman has made me a commerical sized kitchen, it helps to imagine a cooktop and then some space either side etc. 

My previous cooktop had NO working space either side. 

The flat we are living in is also helping too.  Despite being a small compact kitchen, there is a benchspace of 4metres, and it looks quite long.  However, once you pop the microwave somewhere and factor in the sink .. i'm still 1.5 metres one side ( taken up with the chopping board and a bowl of fruit etc ) .. and about 500mm on the other ( dirty dishes, empty cups etc )

So it's a good visual.

However, I still can't get my head around the enormity of my kitchen.  I think it is freaking huge.
And that's not a bad thing, but it's certainly scary.

I designed a house once with a big kitchen that looked fiiiiiiine on paper, and when actually made left us with zero space, and we juuuuust squuuueezed in our dining table.. but it was pretty cramped and you had to pull your tummy in to squeeze past other diners.  Oops.

So naturally, I don't want this to happen again.


HOWEVER ( again, she says ) .. it really can't be any smaller as it throws everything out of whack ( the working triangle etc ) .. it's just really LONG.  We can't make it any shorter ( except by making the island skinnier ), and that's the only place I want to make more space.

So it is what it is.  And it's what it will be.

( deep breath )

Ok, so it will visually look like this:




And the plans I drew up to pretty much scale in Photoshop look like this:





My favourite bit of all is the laundry/pantry.  Oh my Lord - when you SEE how this will look in the end, you will DIE.  I swear.  It's my old crap laundry, but reborn.  It will be divine.

So what do you think? 
As always, any advice or anecdotes are welcome - it's not too late, because today was more about where things go, so they can make their plumbing plan.

Also, I now have to find a sink.  In all the kitchens i've been pinning etc .. I don't think i've taken notice of one sink.  What's cool in sinks?  What sucks in sinks - anyone know?

If you've got a link-to-a-sink .. let me know!


xx
Lea