Things we did this weekend:

1. Attended a bachelor party at Lake Lanier (Nathan, Friday).

2. Started (and finished) a portrait of Nate's dad and his fiance for a wedding gift (Andrea, Friday).

3. Went to A-1 Furniture Depot - aka hole-in-the-wall joint off Windy Hill - and haggled with a dude over an antique desk we're going to use as my makeup vanity (both of us, Friday - pics and details below).

4. Went to IKEA on Saturday and finalized our kitchen cabinets order; got two panels for either side of the fridge and bumped out the depth of the cabinets above it so it'll look recessed/built-in. Pics of that in a separate entry, I believe.

5. Went to My Favorite Place and found the PERFECT vanity for the bathroom (Sunday, also both of us, also pics and details below).

6. Went to Home Depot and the Home Depot Clearance Outlet and bought the tile for our bathroom floor! White ceramic 12x12s with a grey vein and shiny black granite for the two black borders.

7. Shopped around on Overstock and eBay for vessel sinks and faucets and beveled mirrors for the bathroom.


We talked about the order of installation for a lot of these things and decided we're gonna start back in the bedrooms and work our way out. That means we're going to paint them next weekend, and hopefully this week I can peel all the wallpaper off the hallway.
Crown molding soon (our contractor is quoting us THREE DOLLARS A FOOT for materials AND installation, holy mother of awesome), baseboard, then floor sanding and staining.

Drywall.
Flooring stuff for the kitchen, cabinet assembly, tiling, cabinet installation, backsplash, lighting.

Appliances show up October 10th.

Furniture.

Hardware and doors.

Rambling.



PICTURES!

So this was an inspiration pic I had been loving:



And when we went to My Favorite Place today, this was a table we found:



I mean are you KIDDING ME? How PERFECT is that???

The only main difference is that we're going to mount a square vessel sink instead of doing an undermount.
Something like this:


And then that leaves us with a decision about finishes for the faucets. Rubbed bronze or brushed nickel? Bronze might look better with the accents on the table . . .

Anyway. It was priced at $200, I got it for $160.
We were practically giddy when we walked out with it.
Then we tried to fit it into my Beetle.

This is Nathan, hunched against the wheel on the way home - hilarious, BUT the trunk closed! Love that high roof.







Definitely cozy.


When we got to the house, I finally got to see our tub and sink in person. It was like Christmas.

Our sink! (sorry for the blur . . . I'll try again in better light some time.)






Our tub!





That slotted overflow raises the water level a couple inches.


And my vanity!
When we walked into that shop I was ITCHING to haggle. It's kind of embarrassing how much I love doing this now.
So we spotted this desk and we both loved the woodwork and the detail. I want to stain it a darker color, though - or else paint it, but I'd kind of hate to paint over this wood. I do want some way to update it a little . . .

There's a post somewhere on one of my design blogs where they painted a desk and used patterned wallpaper on the front panels of the drawers.
I dunno. I'll marinate on it.






But yeah, stick it with a beveled mirror, bam. It'll hold my ridiculous amounts of cosmetics.

It was priced at $195, down to $175, down to $155 - I told the owner if he'd let me have it for $100 I'd buy it right then and take it that day.

"No no no, I can't do. I buy at $200, I lose too much."
"Okay, well, up to you."
"I can do $125."
"That's great, but like I said - for $100 I'd buy it right now. Anything higher and I need to shop around to see what else I can get. So, think about it if you want to. Just let me know."

Then the dude stared at me for about a minute. I raised my eyebrows and he got all irritated and said "I'M THINKING!" and then finally said, really grudgingly, "okay."

He HAAAATED me. It's so funny when they HAAAATE me.

So then I rode that high for a while. Nate's mama sweetly picked it up for us ('cause there was no way that thing was fitting in the Beetle) and dropped it off at the house.

Slowly amassing my antique collection. That, plus the bathroom vanity, plus the 20s radio console we got last year.

The tile floor was a great deal, too - the ceramic was $1.29 per sq. foot.

We were thinking that this is gonna be a lot like the wedding - we'll end up NEAR our set budget. Not entirely on it, but not outrageously over it, either.

Lord knows we're working our butts off finding these deals.



Updated kitchen cabinet post later. Might toss that one to Nate.