Tile Quest!!

For the past several months, I have searched high & low for a tile blend that would give me the look & feel in this Kohler ad from a few years ago:

The blend above has a healthy dose of Aqua & a but of grey thrown in.

I've looked high & low & even resorted to calling Kohler, who scrounged & also could not figure out where they got the tile or where to send me (though they did make a valiant effort!).

So, since these aqua tones do not appear to be any longer available in glass mosaics, we will be going with more of a blue tone, instead, but a similar look & feel - tile all the way up the walls, rounded edge where the floor meets the walls, etc.

Here's where we ended-up with a custom blend.  We're happy with it - given that it appears that it is certainly going to be the closest we're going to be able to get:

It's got some shimmer pieces to it, a bit of grey & a lot of varying shades of blue - we think it'll look GREAT!!

Getting Closer.......

Since, of course - NOTHING is cookie-cutter about this house - bidding has taken FOREVER (& a few days more, even.....).  But - after some refinements to get us MUCH close to budget, we're getting closer & hoping to be able to turn it over to the bank in the next couple weeks for final approvals.

Unfortunately, our hopes of being in our new house (& out of our crappy apartment) by Christmas as looking like just a pipe dream at this point.

As they say.....Rome wasn't built in a day  :) 

Hopefully More SOON!!!!!

Plans in the Builder's Hands - FINALLY!!!

On May 28th, we passed an important milestone of the pricing plans being handed-off from our architect to our builder for him to develop final pricing.  YAY!!!!!!

He was chomping at the bit to get rolling on the pricing, so we're sure looking forward to the next step, which will be handing that all off to the bank for our final, final construction loan approval.  Can't wait!!

& here are a few views of the updated plans for your viewing enjoyment.....we're sure getting closer!!

It's about time we got back to some house stuff, so here are a few things we've picked-up over the past couple years for the house.

A friend in the design business saw this flooring on Craigslist for a STEAL & it seemed like a GREAT fit for our bar - since it's flooring made from old WHISKEY BARRELS.

Sadly, it no longer smells like Whiskey Barrels ;)

Next-up, we found this old Ship's Door at a great ships salvage place down in Galveston & thought it was PERFECT for the door from the Bar to the Pool.

We'll have to add a little height to it during the build - but Authentic & very cool for way cheaper than we would have paid to have one custom built, too - YAY!

And we've got something FUN planned for this, which we picked-up at a Flea Market a while back:

And.....finally.....neither of us can say that we EVER thought we'd have a Mailbox in a bucket.  But, well, such is life in rural Texas.  Hook 'em, baby!!!

Oh - and even without a house on our land, we can still do a bit of this to keep ourselves entertained ;)