kitchen progress

Aubrey was doing a lot of this today.....

Grouting!! We're almost at the finish line. We went with a pre-mixed white grout. Although the container says "ultra white" it it kind of is still greyish. It may be that we're using a lot of different tones of white in our kitchen which shows the difference in whites a lot more. Regardless of the darker colour than I expected, I love it.  Almost there!

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what we picked for the kitchen backsplash...

Aubrey started tiling the backsplash. :-) He's a pro after having tiled the basement bathroom, so a project like this was easy for him to do. In terms of the tile I ended up going with my gut instinct and went with a classic white subway tile. Although the white subway tile is one of the more economical tiles to go with, it definitely doesn't look "economical" when you pair it with everything else we've picked. It looks really gorgeous, so I'm really happy.

We purchased the tiles from Home Depot after I compared different subway tiles in this post. The Home Depot tiles definitely complimented the off white Ikea Adel doors the best. In terms of the grout colour, we'll be going with white grout. For for me, a gray grout would have added just that pinch of too much fuss. We're getting close! Eeeek!

Ps., Some of you have asked for a full rundown in the end of what we picked and tips from the full kitchen reno. I'll definitely do this at the end so there can be a comprehensive post.

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front hall tile

As I wrote about here, we made 1 major design mistake when we first renovated our house: We had hardwood installed all the way to the front door. What we really should have done was have installed tile by the front door - considering we live in Canada and we knew we were going to have kids. (Messy boots, dirt, mud, snow)

Because we were having a hardwood guy come to install new hardwood in the kitchen - we asked him to remove a section of the wood floor in the front hall. The photo shows the hardwood torn out and a new piece of wood installed to divide where the hardwood is, and where the new tile will eventually go.

My task is to find tile. I went to Saltillio Tile and was in heaven. Now only was their selection gorgeous, but their service was amazing. It walked out with samples, and a lot of helpful advice as to what tiles to pick. For us we're leaning towards the porcelain tiles because of easy maintenance and lower cost. With that out of the way, we have to narrow it down to a tile - light vs. dark.  Although the light is beautiful it really chops up the flooring. In a small house I think having continuous tones (especially on floors) makes it seem larger. So I think we're leaning towards the darker porcelain tile.

Just the daily design decisions going on!

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