I have a little window of time here between a work conference call and meeting up with Josh’s parents to head down to the ballpark (go Giants!) so I thought I would share a few photos of the upstairs now that we’ve managed to junk them up like real people. Let’s start with action central: the kitchen.
Some highlights:
– The fixture over the dining table. A nightmare to install, but that’s what you hire pros for. It looks so incredible and will look even better once we commit to this height, cut the cables, and patch that junction box cover so you can’t see it any more. Why that’s there is a long story, not at all worth telling here; suffice it to say we had to come up with a workaround and it all turned out fine.
– The hole above the refrigerator. The replacement cabinet arrived from Viola Park yesterday; the new door will be shipped by the end of the week. So soon we will have one full cabinet up there which means I’ll have to find a new home for the 2 baby blue cast iron pots.
– Heath in the niches. A little hard to see, but there are three new Heath ceramics vases in the island niche that faces the living room. I have previously expressed my adoration of all things Heath; yesterday we made a trip to the factory and store in Sausalito where Josh’s folks bought these for us as a housewarming gift. So lovely – they look perfect there.
– All the stuff on the island. Good to know that this has, as expected, become the ideal place to plop whatever is in our hands when we come into the house. Hey, at least we know where our stuff is.
A better view of the piles on the island; but, better yet, the way the light fixture looks when you enter the kitchen, and when you stand at the cook top. It’s pretty wonderful.
Moving on to the media room now.
This is essentially the view as you walk in from the hallway. Dig the aluminum foil on the arm, eh? This is a tactic we’re trying to discourage the kitties from using all of our new sofas as scratching posts. Apparently they really do not like the way the foil feels, and learn to avoid the whole thing even after you take it off. We’ll see…
This room represents a great blending of new pieces and items we already owned. New: sofa, jute rug, cowhide (all IKEA). Old: side table (Heywood-Wakefield), lamp, butterfly chair, ottoman (which is temporary as we feel something round is a better option here), light fixture (Jonathan Adler), knick-knacks (Native American pottery from trips to New Mexico, Taino objects given to us as wedding gifts from Josh’s mother’s best friend, a box of sand from Broome, Australia, and a little day of the dead couple Josh and I bought on the day he proposed here – in other words, all of these things have a lot of significance to us).
An alternate view from inside the room. Here you can see the Room and Board cabinet we bought to house all the electronics, plus the old bowls, vases, and bizarro door threshold I used to create a vignette to make up some of the space between the cabinet and TV. The white books in the space came from our wedding table centerpieces; the white cube ottomans are also things we already had. And the wool blanket there was knit by my very own mother. It’s perfect in this room.
So it’s definitely starting to come together. It’s super comfortable, great for watching TV, and can accommodate a whole bunch of people. Next we need to hang some window treatments and get some art on the walls.
We’re super happy with how the upstairs bath turned out.
The light fixture and mirror came from the old master bath – we really liked them both and were so glad to find a new home for them in here. We think the old cabinet door should someday be replaced with something simpler, but it’s fine for now. I’m really on the fence about whether or not to hang a shower curtain. I do think this room needs the softening aspect of textiles (beyond towels), but am not super excited about looking at a curtain rod all the time. Sometimes I think installing a Lucite rod is the answer… thoughts?
The cabinet turned out wonderfully. I like that we kept an open section – not sure towels are the permanent display option. I also still need to find drawer pulls.
I intentionally left out the office, which is still chockablock with moving boxes – we’ll tackle that project in early November. I leave for a work trip tomorrow; as soon as I get back, Josh is off for work travel for a couple days. That’s OK – some breaks from this now and again are essential to re-energizing us for the next phase. Moving in was a huge accomplishment, but by no means does it indicate we’re done.
The media room looks so good!!!!! It’s all coming together for sure.
Loving everything. The dining area is to killer. I died.
Yes, well — you were so instrumental in making it look so great! Don’t you love that dining room fixture? A show-stopper, to be sure.