A Storm and Some Tile

We've been huddling down under a pretty big storm system all weekend. Lots of wind, several inches of rain (always a nice thing), that kind of thing. Yesterday was a great day to have a nice afternoon nap, but today we took some time between rain showers to run over to the house and continue our never-ending task of emptying the basement (good lord we have a lot of stuff down there) and check on things.

A splashing sound alerted me to the fact that something was a little wrong:

That's a nice reflecting pool of water under the deck there.

The pump had popped its breaker for some reason. We reset it and the pump got to work.

We kind of talked over how we are modifying the irrigation during construction. We can't turn it off completely because it is critical to the dewatering of the foundation, but we are turning off several circuits (because we are putting a house on top of them).

I have some big plans for reworking the whole irrigation system when this renovation is done. It's working right now but I'd like to change how it works inside the house and maybe move some of the valves around.

In the meantime, this week I've been texting Noel all kinds of pictures like this:

I'm going room by room and developing a whole-house palette of materials. The idea is to narrow down to a fairly small set of colours that track from room to room. This helps tie the whole house together; the rooms each build up to a larger narrative, as it were. Also it means we don't need to buy fourteen kinds of paint. Win.

Anyway, at my office we have been spending lunchtimes for the last week or so putting materials together and working off the things I have already nailed down. There's a massive wall of tile in the kitchen that needs to be accounted for, and that is what we've been puzzling over with pictures like this.

I'm really into the super-dark purple cabinets with the calacatta bluette marble counter. I had been planning a much more subdued counter, maybe even concrete, but when I pulled that out and put them together the combination was stunning. It's a relatively small space, so it won't be overwhelming. Since making that choice I've been pulling out tiles that pick up various colours in the stone for the backdrop wall. My boss made the good point that we don't want that wall to get too dark, even if it is in a brightly lit room. I don't want it to get so flashy that it is overwhelming on midsummer afternoons.

At the same time I made a furniture layout and a list of the pieces we need and the ones we are keeping from the things we have. Most of the furniture from the parlours needs to be replaced because it is quite elderly and has lived this renovation a little too intimately, though some of it can just be redone or spiffed up a little and do just fine. That's a whole additional ordeal.

posted by ayse on 03/06/16