Slab Shopping

Michelangelo Granite

MTH and I went shopping for stone slabs for our kitchen and bath countertops today and, oh, what a treat! We visited Pental’s showroom in south Seattle where the warehouse contains literally hundreds of gorgeous slabs of granite, marble, and quartz—all so delicious-looking you could eat them!

We already have the following in mind for the bathrooms, but are still uncertain about the kitchens:

•  Miss K’s bathroom countertop—white quartz (she chose the one with sparkles in it)
• Our bathroom countertop—Michelangelo granite (honestly it looks more like marble…)
  
• Mom’s bathroom countertop—something in a soft green

Designing for Dogs

Lately I've started thinking about how to best accommodate our little Maggy the Wonder Pup (or Magpie as she is also called) in the new house. Living in temporary quarters has made it far too easy to let things slide as far as house rules and manners. All of us have gotten a little sloppy, but no one so much as Maggy who is still too young to have even acquired any manners.

How and where Maggy will fit in at the new house. Where will she sleep? Where will we keep her food? Will we have the discipline to always bring her in and out through the mudroom? (That's what it's designed it for, right?) Not having much experience with dogs, I turn to you, dear readers, for some advice.

Shop(ping) Talk

Some people love to shop. Some people hate to shop. Because building a house involves a LOT of shopping, no matter which category you are in, you’d better have a strategy for getting all that shopping done.

If you love to shop, you run the risk of overwhelming yourself with the choices available. You’ll spend unbelievable amounts of time deliberating over each of the thousands of decisions that go into building and furnishing a house. Believe me, I know, because this is my shopping style!

If you hate to shop, you have other pitfalls to avoid. In your desire to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible, you run the risk of choosing items one-by-one without thought to how they work together as a whole. Or you choose too quickly and without enough information. This leads to regrets down the road when you find a better product or a better price elsewhere.

Building a house is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ve got to have a strategy for making it across the finish line with enough energy left to enjoy this creation of yours.