Lowe's: Next on 'Celebrity Rehab'

The Lowe's website is an alcoholic. I keep searching for "corian" and the website keeps giving me results for "corona". If only!

The bathroom is next...

I'm having the same concerns about the guest bathroom, which at the moment has no bathtub (or wall behind the former bathtub), so it needs some serious work. My thought is to do the permanent parts of the bath in white/cream/tan/brown-y colors, which then can be dressed up with a wide variety of colors in a number of ways. That way, I can pretty easily change the look if I get bored, *and* it's a nice, neutral slate for any future home buyers.

I found a tile that I really love--it's $4.69 a square foot:

I could stretch my renovation dollars farther by putting a more inexpensive tile on the floor, like this:

That one is $1.99 a square foot... but it kinda looks like vinyl, doesn't it?

Then there are always the Lowe's and Home Depot options, which tend to run from $.98 to $1.99 a square foot, but I haven't seen anything that I particularly like. I could always, again, go with plain white (or cream?) tile. ???

Here's one from Lowe's that's about $.98 a square foot:

I also want to tile the bathroom halfway up (and the bath/shower area all the way to the ceiling), and that obviously increases the cost of materials. Plus, Grandma has requested a walk-in shower, so I'm trying to find a way to do that, but they all look cheap and yet cost a lot. I would love to do a tiled shower, which would be expensive, because it requires some special base building, and because the tile increases the cost of the materials. But it would look so much nicer...

So do I go basic shower/tub combo (or ugly walk-in shower) with nicer, pretty floor tile and probably a nicer wall tile and backsplash? Or do I go for the tiled shower and do pretty basic tile on the floors and walls--with maybe a nice backsplash for a little pizazz? (Note: backsplashes are expensive, so I would use it sparingly.) Or... something else entirely?

Ideas? Opinions?

Kitchen indecision

I am struggling with ... well, with everything, but right now, I'm focused on the kitchen, since that's the first thing that needs to be done. I know that I want gray... but after that, the details get fuzzy. Here are some thoughts:

(1) I was initially considering IKEA cabinets with flat molding, light birch frames, and white doors. I liked them with gray and wood/sand color for everything else. But then I decided that I maybe didn't want to deal with making multiple to trips to IKEA, which two hours away...

(2) Then I found some unfinished cabinets at Home Depot which are inexpensive and which would look nice painted. But then I worried that dark gray cabinets would overwhelm the space, because the actual cabineted part of the kitchen is pretty narrow, so I thought of going with charcoal gray on the bottom cabinets and pewter gray on the uppers.

(3) So then I went tile shopping (pictures below) and found some great tile... and started to worry about cost. Plus, I'm still having trouble picturing the dark lower/lighter upper cabinets--and I'm having trouble picturing what color to do the walls and countertop so that it didn't look blocky and dully.

(4) Now I'm back to thinking of uniform dark (but not charcoal) gray cabs. I could do a plain white tile floor (inexpensive!) with white countertops (staining potential??) and white walls with a lighter gray trim. But I worry that would be too stark.... I saw this picture and really liked it.

Notice the wood floor and sandy/taupe-y walls. So now, another option is to do bamboo floors (which I'm hoping to do elsewhere throughout the house), gray cabinets, white countertops, some sort of interesting backsplash, and a sand/taupe color on the walls with white trim. And maybe a natural-fiber roman shade on the window above the sink? Or I could do gray cabinets, white floor, white countertop, interesting backsplash, and a sand/taupe on the wall AND trim. OR I could do gray cabinets, pretty ($$) tile floor, white countertops, interesting backsplash, and sand/taupe on walls with white trim.

I am concerned about cost, overall look, and resale value (to some degree). I'm worried that an all-white tile would be too stark, but it looks really pretty and clean in a lot of photos I've seen online--and it would be a lot more inexpensive, which would give me a little leeway to do other stuff I'd like to do. Thoughts???

Here are some photos of the stuff I liked at The Tile Shop:

This one's my favorite ($4.39/sq. ft.):

I am concerned about cost, overall look, and resale value (to some degree). I'm worried that an all-white tile would be too stark, but it looks really pretty and clean in a lot of photos I've seen online--and it would be a lot more inexpensive, which would give me a little leeway to do other stuff I'd like to do. Help! Thoughts???

Into the Void

Three months ago, I would've laughed if someone suggested that I'd be a homeowner soon. Three months ago, I would've frozen at the thought of making decisions about inspectors and cabinets and bathtubs and flooring and earnest money and resale value and paint colors and sliding glass doors and furnaces and staining garage floors and loose siding and carpet stains... What happened? What changed?

Stay tuned for obsessive debates with myself about the minutest of details of my (maybe) upcoming home renovation (pending Monday's inspection), pictures of the ongoing renovations, and tragicomic stories about how I fucked something (or myself) up!

Welelelelelelelelelelelelelp

I am Leslie Knope-ier than I care to admit.

Microblogging AHOY

Why is hoarding so hot all of the sudden? It's the butt of every sitcom joke. WTF?

Facebook

You know what? Fuck those people who are all "oh Facebook is so stupid and juvenile and fosters shallow and unfulfilling connections". Because Facebook has exponentially increased the joy in my life by making it easy to share thoughts and ideas and feelings and oh MY LIFE with people with whom I would otherwise have no way or energy to contact. Yes, sometimes it's just a little sentence here or there.

But sometimes that's what you need.