Yeah! A Kitchen Designer!

Well, I think we've found our kitchen designer. We stopped by a kitchen place on our way to look at some more appliances and both fell in love with this guy. His name is Mark and he used to be a chef, so he knows what needs to be done to make a kitchen functional as well as beautiful.

He gave us a quick run-down of where he'd put the appliances, and why, and it all made sense. He can put a cooktop vent right in the ceiling over the cooktop (between the ceiling joists) which will keep the view from being blocked by a large vent. He kept the center island free from any appliances or sinks which is what I wanted and he did it before I even told him that's what I wanted. He also gave us some great ideas for the floors in the kitchen and adjoining rooms. He suggested deep cabinet drawers to store the dishes in (as we won't have any space for upper cabinets due to the wall of windows in the kitchen) and the deep drawers are what I wanted to use. He loves cooking gadgets and lots of light in kitchens, so we are right in sync with one another.

I'm excited - I think he'll come up with an awesome design for us! He'll also work with us on designs for the bathrooms.

We also looked at appliances. DH agrees with my choice of the LG refrigerator - he liked it better than all the others we looked at. We also looked at some dishwashers and other appliances, but didn't really make any decisions.

To the appliance store...

Today I headed to the local appliance store to take a look at some kitchen appliances and see if I could make some decisions. I finally decided on this electric cooktop from Bosch:
http://www.boschappliances.com/product494.html

It has some features that sound interesting and I won't have any problem using my large canner with this cooktop. It will be simple to keep clean as it is a smoothtop and the smoothtop we had at one of our previous houses was my favorite range. I've cooked on gas at church, but I'm not crazy about it and it always seems to heat the kitchen up so much...

The salesman recommended getting all one brand, such as Jenn Air, in order to coordinate the look between the appliances. DH and I had already decided that all one brand would be a good idea for that very reason.

I had previously decided to get this refrigerator from LG Electronics:
http://us.lge.com/products/model/detail/home%20appliances_refrigerators_french%20door_LFC25760.jhtml

I still really like this refrigerator and may end up trying to find other LG appliances to match this refrig. The Jenn Air that I looked at today didn't have drawers that functioned as smoothly as the LG and it doesn't have a solid base under the freezer basket which would keep crumbs from falling through onto the floor when you open the freezer drawer.

So, two appliances decided and a bunch more to go! As I said yesterday, decisions, decisions, decisions!

Kitchen Designer

Well, DH made an appointment with a kitchen designer for next Thursday. We have been looking for someone who would be able to do more than ask us what kind of cabinets we want and where we want them. We're looking for some guidance and inspiration.

Now I have to figure out which appliances I want before we go to the appointment. I know which refrigerator I want, but I haven't decided on any of the other appliances. We'll probably just have a countertop microwave and place it in a cubby in the end of the island, or perhaps near the ovens.

So, that means I need to decide on the dishwasher, and whether I want a cooktop and double ovens or a range with an extra oven. I do a lot of baking, especially several times a year when we bake dozens and dozens of cookies to label with our church info and hand them out at local youth days and light-up nights. We also have a couple of church bake sales a year that I do a lot of baking for. I therefore would like electric ovens, which bake more evenly than gas ovens.

I've always had electric stoves, but am considering going with a gas cooktop and double electric ovens. The other option is to get a dual fuel range with gas burners and electric ovens, but those are very expensive. I'm sooo confused about what to get! Maybe having a deadline of next Thursday is a good thing - I'm going to have to really research this week and decide what I want to get.

I've also considered the induction cooktops because they heat very quickly and are energy efficient. I would need to get new pots and pans because mine aren't magnetic-based. My main concern with this option is that I wouldn't be able to use my canner and I've only been able to find aluminum canners and those won't work with the induction cooktop.

Decisions! Decisions! Decisions!

We know our new address!

Exciting news yesterday - our building permit has been approved and the township assigned us an address for the new house. It's a private road, however, so we can't give the address to people who might want to map directions to our house on the internet, because (at least on Google maps), private roads are not recognized. We'll have to use an address on the main road when we give people directions.

DH left a message with the builder that our permit has been approved, so hopefully we'll hear back from him and can get moving on this house! Our builder is a commercial builder who does a few private residences for people he knows. DH worked with him on our church sanctuary project a couple of years ago and asked if he would be willing to build our house.

House Plans

I thought I'd post our house plans today. We had an architect draw up these plans for us.

We're anxious to break ground. DH filed for a building permit and we're still waiting on some building estimates to come in. We're hoping to break ground in September and get the house under cover before winter so that the builders can work through the winter. Our plan is to be done in early Spring and to put our current house on the market just before the new house is ready to move into. The best laid plans of mice and men...we shall see...

I stopped by Home Depot yesterday to look at refrigerators - I wanted to make sure that the spot we are planning to put it will actually be the right size. The refrigerators that I'm looking at are ones with the freezer on the bottom and French doors on the top so that I can fit large trays of food in the refrigerator, as we entertain a lot. When the builder built this house, he decided on the size of the refrigerator opening by measuring his own refrigerator, which he later admitted was rather old and small. The frig we brought with us when we moved here from NC was practically new and we had to sell it because it wouldn't fit in the space here. I could have lived with the smaller frig if I could only open the freezer door all the way - the builder put the frig so close to the corner that the door hits the cabinets on the wall next to the refrig wall. I long to be able to put a 9x13 pan into my freezer. That's why I'm bound and determined to make sure the refrigerator in the new house is done right!

Here we go!

Well, we are on our way - the land has been purchased, the design is decided upon, the issuing of the building permit is underway (hopefully, we'll have it soon). Meanwhile, I thought I'd post some of the photos of the property we bought.

These photos are from January when the leaves were off the trees.

You can see a glimpse of the river in the next photo (right in the center of the photo, behind the base of the trees).



There are 2 ponds on the property, shown above. At the moment the ponds are green and scuzzy - anyone have any ideas how to get rid of the scum? We saw 1000s of tadpoles in one of the ponds in May. Supposedly, there are koi in at least one of the ponds, but we have yet to see any.


More later!