The Home Stretch..

Things have been moving so fast over at the house these past two weeks, that I didn't even have time to put in any updates! So I'll try to catch you up with what has been going down at the Arnold casa...

The master bath has started to take shape.. all the tile has been laid..still need to seal the stones, put in shower doors, fixtures, etc etc.

Here's a look at the almost completed shower that I designed:

and a sketch that I drew out for the placement of the vanities:

The pool has started to come back to life, now that it has been completely resurfaced, tiled, and filled.  No more green swamp! yay!  :)

 All it needs now is a nice new deck surface surrounding it to replace the icky pinky cement paint color...

This weekend is when the vision really started to come to life.  Finally...What I've been waiting for since I stepped foot into this house... new paint and new wood floors!!

We chose a soft light gray from sherwin williams called 'Ice Cube' for the majority of the house.

Then we chose an accent color called 'Foggy Day' to go on the fireplace wall and in the entry to our master bedroom... and for one more pop of color we went with a deep teal/blue called 'Amalfi' for the wall that will be at the head of our bed. The entry to the master has been revamped as well, we took the door off where it used to be and made a private little entry way to make it feel more like a master bedroom.  I think it made a huge difference!  

 

The carrera marble tile at the base of the fireplace is also new... we are thrilled with how it came out.  All the window sills in the house are carrera marble so I thought it would be nice to tie it in here.  Love it against the new dark bamboo and the gray accent wall!

That's about it for now, we are hoping that the newly painted kitchen cabinets will be going back in on wednesday. Once those are in it will mostly be final touches before we can start moving our stuff over there! 

Actually we have already started that process ... I was fortunate enough to have my mom come down to visit this past week to help me begin the packing stage.  She did such an amazing job and really got us off to a great start... I don't know what I would have done without her! Thanks mama! xoxo

Decisions Decisions...

This past week we were pleasantly surprised by our contractor telling us that a whole bunch of new projects could start asap. But we had to make some game time decisions on the vanities, all the tiles for the master bathroom project and the pool tile.  I wasn't about to be the one holding up any progress so I immediately went on a mission to get it done. Luckily I have become quite familiar with what seems to be a construction district of some sort out in Doral.  I had done my homework and had narrowed it down to two stops, D&B tile and The Home Design Outlet Center.  From what I could tell these both had the best selections, and more importantly the best prices.
    Arriving at D&B, I find myself in a giant show room of nothing but tiles of every sort. To say that I was overwhelmed would definitely be an understatement. But after what was probably about 2+ hours spent meticulously piecing together a design plan with a wonderful salesman, Tony, I came to my final decisions on all of my tiles.   It felt like such an accomplishment to have this part out of the way. The best part is that I am really so happy with what I ended up getting, and I got deals on every single one!
Once I was finished with the tile mission, I only had about 45 min until the district was going to shut down for the day. I still had to get the vanity for the master bath so I had to hustle.  I had picked out a few options online already so I knew what I was looking for once I got in there. Due to the lack of space in our bathroom, I decided to go with two separate small vanity sets next to each other, rather than one large double vanity.  Of course the one that I had liked most had been out of stock online for quite a while.  I thought I would go out on a limb and ask if it happened to be there anyway... and to my surprise it was! They had arrived earlier that day, and again I had a wonderful salesman that was very helpful, so he took me to the warehouse and showed me what they looked like in person.  I was sold, the price was sooo right, it has a beautiful porcelain vessel sink, with a solid dark oak cabinet, and a glass countertop. Done and done... I ordered two and was on my way.  One small step for the renovation, one giant leap for my piece of mind.

Here are some of the samples that I chose for the master bath (and a rough sketch of the shower):

*Porcelain tile (coming in three different sizes, one for the floor, and two for the shower walls)
*Smooth River Rock in 'Sumatra' for the shower floor, and for the back of a small niche in the shower wall. (once it is sealed it will have a more polished finish)
*Accent Strip made up of a variety of stones and glass pieces, to be run vertically on the back wall of the shower.

Here is a pic of the single vanity we chose to buy two of, to go side by side :

Here is the sample of our pool tile:

It sparkles.. and that makes me happy ;-)