London Trip

I spend a wonderful week in London with my best friend from high school. We rented an apartment for the week....originally in the Whitechapel area, but got switched at the last minute to the uber swanky Knightsbridge area near Harrod's. Here's a link to photos.

London is not my favorite city, but I liked it more this time than I have on previous visits.

4/17--arrived in London. Super jetlagged, but managed to go to Picadilly to get my London Pass, and get some food before crashing. Nikki's flight was cancelled so she wouldn't arrive until the next day.

4/18--Day tour of Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath. We left London at 5:20 am. Yes...5:30 am!! We arrived at Stonehendge about 8am. This was a private viewing before Stonehenge opens and we were able to go in and around the stones, but under no circumstances could we touch the stones. It was amazing. Next we went to Lacock for a full English breakfast in an old pub and had about an hour total there. Last stop was Bath for a couple of hours. We had a tour of the baths, and then I also toured the abbey, which was amazing. Then back in London by about 5:30 pm. Nikki finally arrived about 6pm, and we had dinner and a few drinks that night.

4/19--London. We tried to queue for some day of tickets to a play Peter and Alice with Judi Dench, but didn't have any luck. We then went on a bus tour around London, and got off at the London Tower for a tour there. Queued again for return tickets to the play, and did manage to get tickets!! The play was amazing. I was in the 11th row and all the actors gave fantastic performances. Afterwards we had some drinks in Picadilly and then headed home.

4/20--London. We spent half the day in the Camden market. It's a mix of handcrafted goods and clothing stalls and stores. It was a crush of people, but pretty amazing too. I wound up buying a cute top, a sweater and a fitted winter coat. I also had an amazing gluten free crepe! :-D Next we went on a river cruise of the Thames. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny. We had some drinks in at the flat and relaxed a bit.

4/21--Cardiff. We took the bus to Cardiff so we could go to the Dr. Who Experience. Unfortunately things did not work out us to spend any time exploring Cardiff or trying the local drink...Brains....beer! We hung out at a pub in London that night.

4/22--London. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral. We had lunch at Speedy's to bask in sharing the same space as Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock. Got tickets for the London Eye, and then went over to Oxford St. for a little more shopping and then tea at Selfridges. We then went back for a late afternoon trip on the London Eye. That night we went out dancing until the wee hours.

4/23--London. We had a lovely full English breakfast, and then unfortunately had to leave to go home.

Kitchen Demo Day 73

My backsplash was put in while I was on vacation! I love it. The pictures don't quite do it justice, but the colors are fairly accurate.

The kitchen is about 98% done. I still need a couple of things done to the floor. So happy it's practically over!!

Kitchen Demo Day 43

 I have a functional kitchen!! I have cold and hot water, and even filtered water. I have a dishwasher that works!! Oh, I haven't had a dishwasher since I moved in in August. I have drawer pulls and knobs. And as you can see by the pictures I'm very happy to have counters to pile crap on.

I have a fridge, but.... There are a couple of scratches on the top of the front door. And unfortunately no one realized there were three bags of frozen food in the freezer, so those got hauled off with the old fridge. I'm pretty devastated by that. I use my freezer like nobody's business, and lost a lot of food. It's actually pretty amazing how much was left in there since I've been eating lunch out of my freezer for 6 weeks. I gave up on trying to do dinner because the washing up was too much. I'll get over the heartbreak, and can hopefully clear out the curse of the fridge. :-D I have a beautiful, lovely, open kitchen that I can't wait to be in. I ordered the backsplash today. Unfortunately it won't be ready until the end of next week, but at least I have a functional kitchen. I can start settling in!! And despite a few annoyances, that's all they are. I have a kitchen again!! And a pretty one at that!!

Kitchen Demo Day 42

I have a working stove, microwave, garbage disposal and cold water!! So exciting! The disposal is super quiet, and I can't tell you how lovely it is to have a sink.

This kitchen feels like home. And bonus, I can't touch the ceiling anymore!!

Kitchen Demo Day 41

41 days of not having a kitchen. UGH!! I should have the appliances and plumbing hooked up on Thursday. Yay!!

So I love the granite. It's definitely more blue green than I was expecting, and doesn't go with the olive green I just painted in the dining room. So I need to pick a new color. I am pretty well decided on the celery green subway tile and a couple of rows of the mosaic.

Here are the paint swatches I'm considering.

Kitchen Demo Day 38

Time to take a break from the demo part and discuss kitchen backsplashes. So last week when I went to The Tile Guy shop, I looked at travertine and faux travertine tiles for the backsplash. They are pretty, but very neutral. To jazz it up, I could add a mosaic border...along the lines of this.

One of the challenges is I have a spectacular floor (or I will once I get a few things fixed...I don't want to talk about the problems I've encountered yet) and the granite will also be a little busy. So the travertine is calm and will allow everything else to be the star. The problem for me is that it's beige. It does come in warm tones, and I do think it looks lovely with the granite, but it's kind of boring.

I've spent the last week coming to terms with the fact that I might just have a blah backsplash. Last night I looked at glass mosaics to use as a border and found these two. I like the one with the purple in it.

So I went to the tile shop today, and John, who helped me before was there. He's amazing. Knowledgable and has a good eye for things. Anyway, I also had my paint swatch. I'm do the olive in the dining area. He pulled out a beveled subway tile in celery, which is calm but not blah. It doesn't have the high gloss as the other colored ceramic/porcelain tiles I'd looked at and looks great with my granite.

As we're talking he said I could still do a mosaic border in there, but it might not need it. But then an idea hits him and he shows me this stunning ceramic mosaic. It's got a bit more blue in it, but wow!! I really like it. It comes in this cool basketweave pattern that would be pretty darn awesome because that reads arts and crafts so much.

I also asked him to show me this hexagon tile in yellow. It's blended so there's a bunch of different yellows. I saw it last week and it stuck in my head. It could work.

Anyway--I've gone from blah to OH! I'm going to wait to make a final decision until granite is in and I can see the samples with the full size granite.

Kitchen Demo Day 34

This has been a rough couple of weeks. I have had a hard time getting estimates from tile installers. I wound up with only two estimates and wildly different approaches. I really would have liked a third, but I just don't have the time, or the patience to track down another installer. I also really don't like that it's harder to find reviews or info on installers. So I am going on my instinct. My head keeps arguing with me. I'm so anxious, but I try and keep reassuring myself it will all work out fine in the end!

So I spent most of last week with a horrendous cold trying to get things nailed down. My hope was to get the tile installed this week so appliances could be delivered, and then the countertops would come next week. After many phone calls, I did get a tile guy scheduled for this week. He put down an underlayment yesterday. This is to stabilize the floor and keep the cracks from cracking my tile.

Today he started to lay the tile. Unfortunately a couple of hours after starting, I got a call. They were short on tile. ACK!! So I called the tile store, and they were going to check. Fortunately it was in stock and could be delivered later that afternoon to the store. Unfortunately I have a job where I can't really slip away in the afternoon since it's my busy time. However, I have a dear friend who was willing pick up the tile for me. Yay!! So the tile guys will be able to finish laying the tile tomorrow and do the grout. Whew.

This sort of stuff just stresses me out. I hate having to deal with all of it, and I start worrying and obsessing. I know it will be fine. I really do, but I can't help it. Anyway, I got home from work and my heart stopped. The tile is beyond words beautiful. It is exactly what I wanted, and visual reminder of why I really wanted the tile and didn't want to have to find a different flooring. I can hardly wait to see it tomorrow after it's finished.

Now, if I could just get the countertop folks to wrap up the details!!