Interior Design: Hard surfaces part 1

As I've mentioned before, our interior designer is Margaret Skinner of Margeaux Interiors.  We hired her on to the team late last year and she has been fantastic ever since.  Her email replies have been prompt and she supplies new information at a pace that keeps us moving forward, but allows us time to think things through.  As a bonus, she has her builders license, so you know her input is from an aesthetic as well as functional perspective and could answer some of my technical questions about HVAC and lighting placement.

After looking at our Houzz saved pictures, blueprints of the house, and discussion with us, she determined what our style was and what our expectations were for the scope of the job.  We pay her on retainer and have had to refresh the retainer once so far, so for the amount of work that she gets accomplished, I feel this a very reasonable arrangement.  She is a full service interior designer, so we wanted, we could have her pick out exact pieces of furniture and upholstery for the room design she planned.  We're still thinking about using that service, but are heavily leaning towards it.  We know she has an ultimate design in mind, so to have her implement it 75% might not allow the look to be completed.

We've gone through cabinet selection with her and Eric, the kitchen designer at  Cobblestone Cabinets for cabinet selection for the entire house.  That includes cabinet brand, material, and color for the kitchen, mudroom, master bath, three bathrooms, laundry room, and butlers pantry.  Being a woodworker, I knew what I was looking in a cabinet from a construction perspective.  Short of full custom cabinets, which are extremely expensive, I initially wanted Omega cabinets throughout the house.  I decided on Omega because they use 3/4" cabinet grade plywood for the carcasses, minimum 5/8" solid wood drawers, dovetailed on all joints, Blum slow close full extension drawers and doors, solid wood doors with plywood panels on the doors (depending on the door style), and color matched interiors.  I also like how the cabinet carcasses are constructed.  Being a woodworker with limited funds, we had to go with Omega cabinets in the kitchen (where the most use is and durability is an issue), with Dynasty Cabinetry (lower Omega brand) and Home Crest cabinetry everywhere else.  Cabinet layout and pricing was determined over the course of a few weeks and was much less painful than I thought it was going to be.  Luckily for me, my wife, Tanja, is very decisive when it comes to selection.

With the cabinets decided, we could move on to tiles and counter tops.  One meeting, Margaret brought all our cabinet door samples, and her initial selections for every tiled room so we could see how the materials would combine.  This is where I'll start up with the process since it's the most picture worthy part.  I have prints of the proposed kitchen cabinet layout, but they're not digital, so I'll have to scan and upload them in another update.

   Here's our cabinet and counter top selection for the 4'x8' kitchen island.  The counter top material is a solid surface made by Vicostone, Onyx colored.  We wanted the appearance of a carrera marble, but not the natural material because of the maintainence and stainability.  The island cabinets are going to be the Dynasty Omega to save some money and will be the dark walnut color you see here.  We've decided to not go with a sink in the island since we'll have one in the butlers pantry just around the corner.  We've thrown around the idea of having the counter top of the island closest to the sink made of end-grain butcher block, but haven't made a decision yet.

Here's a closer look at the island counter top.  It's not pure white, and there isn't any glass aggregate in it, but there's a subtle gray veining and mottling that is supposed to mimic onyx. It doesn't have the translucency of the natural stone, so some of the effect is lost.  We're still on the fence about this material.  Tanja's not sure she likes the grey mottling because, to her, it looks like it has a smudge of dirt on it.  We haven't been able to find a white solid surface that has a dimensional sparkle, but not a ton of glass aggregate.  I think we initially didn't want to go with the more exact carrara marble analogues because the strong veining would detract from the veining in our soapstone counters, which I'll get to next.

 For all the cabents that go around the exterior of the kitchen, we've decided to go with a white Omega since they'll be used the most.  To back up a bit, all cabients will have inset doors and drawers, which adds a slight premium.  The interior wood and color will be a natural maple except where there's glass on the door, in which case the interior will be white.  For the counter top that runs along the exterior base cabinets, we've decided to go with a natural soap stone.  Soap stone is a durable and serviceable natrual stone that is commonly used on laboratory tables.  It can be left honed and dry giving it a gray color, or oiled to a dark black color.  Scratches may appear with wear, but they can be buffed out with a slightly abrasive pad.  Grey to white veining may be present.  In this picture, I've wet the soap stone to simulate what it would look like when oiled.

The backsplash tile is from Metis warm from Mosaique Surface.  It's made of Calacatta Dore & White Thassos, which are both natural materials, so sealing will be necessary.  I think the backsplash is a little less prone to staining and etching since it's a verticle surface.  We really didn't have a great idea what we wanted for the backsplash and when Margaret pulled this out, we were happy with the selection.  It kind of follows the trend of using a mosaic tile, but doesn't use the tired trend of horizontal stacked mosaics.  I think this tile can be installed both horizontally (chevrons running horizontally) or vertically (chevrons running vertically), but I' think we've decided we want it installed horizontally, as shown in this picture.

Next to the kitchen is the mudroom and full bathroom ajoining that.  The mudroom selections were simple since we're just deciding on a tile to match the locker/bench that's going in there.  The locker/bench will also be provided by Cobblestone Cabinets and will be constructed by Homecrest.  The color is going to be that washed gray and the bench itself will be a dark walnut color.  We've considered using a live edge slab for the bench but haven't decided on it yet.  The floor will be a ceramic tile, in a basalt color, easy to clean and hides dirt well.  

Also shown in this picture are the tiles used for the bathroom.  I can't remember exactly which goes where, but I know that the small mosaic will be used on the shower floor, the large gray piece at the bottom is the solid surface counter top, and the textured tile at the bottom is the shower wall tile.  I think the white was used as a reference for the cabinet, but I can't remember.  This is more of a utility bathroom since it comes right off the garage and back door.  I imagine using it to shower off after swimming or cleaning up after doing yard work.  Maybe even used for cleaning a dog.  We haven't picked out a sink or toilet yet but something with more utility might be nice.

   Here's the initial selection for the master bathroom.  The cabinets in here are going to be Omega Dynasty as well but the construction will be different than the rest of the house.  Here, the cabinets will be a floating console, two drawers in height.  It will also use a full overlay door instead of an inset, and the door itself will be a walnut slab instead of white shaker, with the woodgrain will running vertically.  The color scheme for the rest of the hard surfaces are natural materials white and gray, giving a classic bathroom look.  The solid surface counter top is the carrara marble looking material from Vicostone.  The floors will be a 12"x14" white tile that will transition into something smaller in the shower.  The funky looking chevron tile will be applied to the feature wall that separates the shower and bathtub.  The counter top material will also be used for the long bench in the shower.  The shower wall tile will be the same as used on the floor.  There has been some discussion about adding a border around the bathroom floor, if it should deliniate the shower, what color it should be... We're also thinking on coming up with an alternative to the feature wall.  The tile is nice, but might not be our style.  Plus, it's not wet rated so it couldn't go on the inside of the shower, hence the other mosaic shown.  Tanja has her eye on something else, so we'll have to get pricing on that.  We've narrowed down a tub, but not hardware, plumbing, lighting, or toilet.  So many decisions.

While most of the bathrooms are plays off each other in one aspect or another, the guest bathroom departs a bit from the norm for a little pizzaz.  Margaret did stay with the white tile on the shower and wall base, she chose this black and white tile for the floor.  The vanity will be a white prebuilt inset shaker door unit with a white solid surface counter top so this floor will add a lot of pop to the room.  The small tie floor format is very Victorian, but usually implemented with a hexagonal or square tile.  This lends itself well to the design of our modern Victorian house while still feeling modern.  It was a surprising choice at first, but I think it will work really well. 

   Here are the materials for the bathroom in bedroom #3.  This room is the non-turret room and basically mimics the floor below so the dimensions of the bathroom are almost exactly the same.  Despite their similarities, Margaret went with different materials, but carried some of the themes of the other bathrooms into to keep a little continuity.    Since there will be a tub in this room, the tub wall will be tiled with the white ceramic subway.  The counter top will be darker gray solid surface from Solid Surfaces Unlimited Jasper collection.  It's the Andes slab, but this sample looks different than the one picture on the manufacturers website.  The floor tile is the textured gray from Beaver tile and stone in a gray minerali color.  Again, the sink will be housed in a pre-built drop in white cabinet with inset shaker style doors.  We haven't picked out a tub yet, but the dimensions are set, so it shouldn't be difficult.  We're looking at a fit in tub and tiling the walls rather than a whole tub/wall combo.

   

   Here are the materials for the laundry room.  It will be pretty simple and functional since it's a laundry room and we don't need to have a lot of fancy stuff here.  The floor tile has a nice non-slip texture to it that makes it look like burlap.  It's hard to recall all the details, but I think we were going with the gray color on the cabinets.  The solid surface sample will be used for the counter top.  It's a pretty good sized room so we were thinking about maybe putting in a craft table too or something.  Maybe add some more functionality to the room since we'll only be washing clothes in it once or twice a week.  

A few features we would like to see in this room if you're looking for ideas:  

• air drying cabinet with flat drying racks
• in wall ironing station
• lots of clothes hanging space
• possible linen closet

We shrink the master closet a little and move the wall shared between it and the laundry room to make the window more symmetrical, then move the washer dryer on that moved wall.  That will give us a lot of storage space where the washer and dryer are right now. The wall space next to the door might be a nice place for a long craft table.

   These are the materials for the turret bedrooms bathroom.  Pretty clean and simple affair since we're thinking about keeping the twins in this bedroom.  We're looking at the darker gray tile going on the floor, the cabinets will, again, be the light gray color to keep it kind of universal, and the lighter gray tile being used for the tile in the tub.  The solid surface counter top is the same as the one for bedroom #3.

  So we're pretty happy with most of the selections, but there are some that require some tweaking.  Also not shown is the powder room in the rotunda, because that's going to be specifically designed and wildly different than the rest of the bathrooms.  I guess it's a chance to add a lot of pizzazz to the house since it will be the main bathroom used by guests.  I've heard rumblings of backlit quartz walls and concrete counter tops.  Should be interesting.