I’m not really sure how much Scott and I have reduced our carbon footprint, and made ourselves greener.  We’ve recycled our appliances – or at least, we hope they’re being used for parts, etc…

Yeah, I drive a Prius which means – theoretically, I use less gas and drive on recycled electric power from braking and slowing down.

Our televisions use LED lighting as well, instead of fluorescent tubes as well.

The lights we use throughout the condo have gone from incandescent to Halogen lights and CFLs.  However, there is new technology we are going to be using.

We’re going to be using LED lighting under our counters instead of Xenon lighting which was going to be used.

I’ve also decided to invest in LED lighting in the form of Philips Hue.  I can change the colours of lighting in my office, plus for now – in the kitchen and the laundry room.  Mmmm.. disco dancing in the laundry room.  This technology is part of the ZigBee alliance which is a cool home automation alliance.

Apparently they will be coming out with potlights and such in the future as part of the Hue line.  Which would be very cool since we have pot lights in the bathroom and kitchen.

I’m not sure we’ll do too much in the way of home automation – but, I do have to admit – a digital panel on the wall to control the dimming of lights would be pretty cool.

And, of course, I’d love to see if we can use Nest thermostats in the living room and bedroom in the future.  Shame that they’re not part of the ZigBee alliance – yet.  I think it would go a long way to helping us keep the condo cool or warm, smartly.

Our dishwasher, picture right, is just completing it’s very last dishload for us before it gets replaced, tomorrow.  It’s kind of sad because all of the original – our first ever – appliances,  have now all been replaced.

Yup… Tomorrow is the big bang, aka demolition day for our old kitchen.  Finally!  The day is here.

But true to form, ‘big bang’ also has another connotation for Scott and I.   We never seem to do anything simple.

We’re adding on a renovation to our laundry room as well.  Why?  Well, see, we got an awesome deal on a Samsung washer and dryer.  Problem is, the plug for the dryer is very close to the ground stopping us from stacking the units.  And we were counting on stacking the units.  So why not move the electrical plug this week with all the electrical work to be done in the kitchen, plus replacing our electrical panel.

At the same time the tiler is here working on the kitchen, why not tile the laundry room?  Same with painting?

And on top of all that, our new washer is leaking out the front door and needs to be services – and I know it’s not due to user error.

The stress of the renovation has been quite something.  Trying to figure out what faucet we want, paint colours, throwing out/recycling stuff we don’t need, not wanting to deal with the sales rep cancelling the order for our dishwasher when we found the next model up for $50 more, etc… It adds up.  We seriously could use a vacation after all is said and done in 4 to 5 weeks.

But, you know, the renovation will be worth it.

As with any renovation, there are always challenges.

Our challenge has been – what colour to go with?  Wait, didn’t you pick your cabinet colour?  Yes we did, however the cabinet maker came back and showed us that relative to the sample we had, what we actually would have gotten is much darker than we wanted.  This is mainly due to the wood changing, and what part of the tree is used.

Cherry can range quite a bit from dark to light – and in the stain and you have a whole new variable.  As a result, a darker cabinet.

So back to the drawing board we went, and admittedly such a pain. We had our heart set on the cabinet colour we wanted, and every time we looked at the colour we picked relative to others and not realizing what it was, both Scott and I were drawn back to the original colour.

So we didn’t go with “Copper Tray” on Cherry, but now we’re going with “Giotto Brown” on Maple.  It’s deeper and redder, and the picture above doesn’t quite do it justice.  In person the colour looks great.  It will mean a slightly darker kitchen, but it works.

This also means a delay in the start of the kitchen renovation by two weeks which sucks as the condo has already been in a bit of shambles as we start moving things out of the kitchen and we have another 5 weeks of this.  That said, I know we will get through it.

First step will be tearing out the old cabinets, tearing down the walls and rewiring the electrical.  I’m looking forward to this.

Ultimately, I am looking forward to getting this all completed.  I know Scott is too.

Here are pictures of the kitchen from when we moved in.  We did nothing to it when we first moved in, etc…

Scott and I, I think, are completely fed up with making choices.  For the past few days, it’s been nothing but have to pick our cabinet, counter, granite or quartz, lighting, backsplash, floor tile, do we want to put a light over our dining room table, do we want change the light fixture in the living room, do we really wanna put that light in that spot…. ARGH!  Can we please turn off our brains?

Cabinets
So we made a few decisions… We decided to go with Cherry wood with a Copper Tray stain from Cuisines Laurier from their Lite line.  However, today, it looks like either the sample our contractors had was wrong or something is up because we got an email back saying the stain is much darker than what they had. So we’re looking at going with Roasted Chestnut or something lighter instead.  We cannot have a darker kitchen given we have a galley style kitchen.

We also went with a Shaker style door with crown moulding and lighting valance.

Counter
On the quartz vs. granite discussion – crowdsourcing guidance said quartz, and I have to say I agree.  The granite in the bathroom is gorgeous, but I do worry if we drop something and do damage to the bathroom counter.  We made the decision, today, to go with Caesarstone Charcoal (9140).  It’s really neat quartz, with dimensionality to it.  We saw it at the International Home and Garden show and it was exactly what we were looking for.

Had we gone with granite, we would have gone with Cafe Imperial.

Lights
Lighting-wise, we picked up two kinds of lights – an art deco light we thought would go above the dining room but it may go over the island; and then a 5-light set which was going to be over the breakfast bar, but may go over the dining room.  We shall see.

We did also get a new lighting set for the living room.  We’re not married to the new light as we do like the funky UFO light we have.

Backsplash and Floor tile
We chose to go towards white with a hint of beige/brown, though the floor does go a bit more grey/white.  I think it will look good.  It is quite conservative if you will, which is not really my thing – totally.  I would like some pizzaz but not quite sure how we can really do it.  Either way, the kitchen is going to look great!