I met with the contractor, Rick, and cabinet maker, Todd, yesterday. It was so nice to plan the cabinet configuration! The basic layout of the kitchen won't change, but the cabinet spaces will. More on that as time goes by.

Rick wants me to choose pretty much everything now. Once it's all in, he'll be able to gut and replace different areas pretty quickly. Shopping… that's doesn't sound bad at all, does it? It's a good thing that 1) I've been thinking about this for a long time and 2) I don't have problems making decisions.

I found the double oven and gas range on Wednesday. Steve looked at them, agreed that they were what he wanted also, and bought them. 

I did more on Wednesday… In our bathroom, we're taking out the tub and replacing it with a walk-in shower. The vanity will be re-built and will be counter-top height. The room is small, I'm keeping the palette light and bright. Here's the tile for the shower walls and floor. The color is more like the top left in the photo – lighter and whiter than it looks in most of the photo.

There will be a 6" band of accent tiles slightly above eye level in the shower. It's a mix of glass and white quartz pieces:

The floor of the shower will be these river rocks that have been flattened:

I think the grout will be a light to medium gray throughout. The vanity top is a very white Silestone, sort of terrazo-looking thing. I don't have the sample any more and failed to take a photo. 

Today I drove to Dallas and found the granite slab for the kitchen. I didn't think I wanted granite. A lot of it is busier than our kitchen could stand. I thought I'd want Corian or Silestone but after seeing friends' kitchens and feeling a variety of countertops, I decided to look at granite to see if I could find a slab that was mostly white with some black. There were a surprising number of choices but this is the one that has my name on it:

This is it from a distance, not a close-up. It looks a little more yellow here than it does in person. I think it's going to look good with the white cabinets and natural hickory floors.

You might wonder where Steve is when I'm doing all this picking. He's happily not joining me as I do it. I am very lucky that he trusts me to make it all look good together. He was only particular about the range and some of the cabinet layout. Being able to make decisions on my own and not 'in committee' absolutely makes this sort of job easier. I like that a lot!