A Design Philosophy

Hi! I know, it’s been awhile. How are you? We’re good. You know, working on the house.

Yeah, the house. No, we’re not moving in any time soon. Christmas. We have to be in by Christmas because my family is flying and driving in from California and New York. Christmas is my holiday, you see, and not even an empty shell of a kitchen and only one functioning toilet will prevent me from claiming the hosting of Christmas as my birthright.

But it’s going well! Chris is over there every night painting. Yes, painting. I know that sounds as if we’re going to move in tomorrow, but we’re not as close as you might think to being done.

Oh, you heard about the bathroom? It’s kind of a wreck. You know, since there’s no floor.

Where's the floor?

Oh — you meant the master bathroom. The floorless hellhole pictured above is just the guest bathroom. No one really cares about that, right? Except, of course, our guests. (Hi, mom! Hi, Lindsey and Ben! I promise you will be able to bathe by Christmas!)

So you’ve heard about our master bathroom, eh? The pedestal tub. The “beautification station” (aka the makeup table). The shower.

I’ll say it again: THE SHOWER.

Plenty of room to get clean.

There will be two shower heads. There will be a bench. There will be gorgeous rectangular lights interspersed in the tile. The lights are designed for use outside, on deck stairs, so they’re waterproof — always a good thing for a shower. The Big C was the mastermind behind that idea. I heart him.

He says it’s the biggest shower he’s ever built, and I can’t lie — Chris and I are kind of proud of that.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not really HEY LOOK AT US WE ARE SO OUT THERE AND WILD kind of people. We’re not wild. We’re not out there. And if you look at us, we are the epitome of mild. Chris wears suits to work, and I wear flats.

It’s safe to say that this shower is the craziest thing we’ve ever done in our whole, entire lives.

The second-craziest thing we’ve ever done in our lives is design our bathroom’s morning kitchen.

Site of our future morning kitchen.

Now, hear me out. My grandmother had a “summer kitchen,” which was a small room off the back of the kitchen that was supposed to relieve the regular kitchen from the heat of cooking in the sweltering Maine summers. Smart idea, right? Design is all about how you use a space, and how its function can help or hinder your everyday life.

For my grandmother, a summer kitchen made sense. For me, a morning kitchen makes sense.

Allow me to explain.

Every morning Chris walks downstairs the kitchen, pours two cups of coffee, then walks upstairs to deliver one to me and drink his own as we get dressed and pull our girls’ hair into pigtails. Now, I have to admit that while Chris is darned cute, he’s not perfect. Sometimes he trips over a rolling Barbie head on his way up the stairs and spills the coffee on the carpet. And remember, it’s dark in the morning. He doesn’t know where he spilled. Plus, he’s got two full, steaming mugs of coffee in his hands and where the hell is he supposed to put them while he hunts for a towel to mop up the coffee before it stains? He’s in a very, very difficult situation.

The kind of situation that can ruin a man’s whole morning.

So I thought … why not put a coffee maker in the bathroom? Why not add a small fridge for the flavored Coffeemate we love so dearly? And hey — if Chris wants to throw a beer or two in there, so be it. If we decide to stow a bottle of champagne for romantic evenings, I think that’s lovely. Those are occasional uses, for sure, but on a daily basis he won’t have to worry about stray Barbie heads or spilling on our bazillion-dollar carpet (believe me, at this stage of the renovation every single purchase feels like a budge-busting, bazillion-dollar purchase).

I designed this morning kitchen for my husband’s sanity.

The plaster/drywall crew is putting up drywall this week, taping and mudding it, and we should be able to paint this weekend. We’re also heading up to Lumber Liquidators in Wilkes Barre to see if we can’t get a good deal on some flooring for the first floor.

Yeah, we’re going with wood for the whole thing, even the kitchen. It’s flying in the face of convention — and popular practice, according to the tile-happy HGTV — but I love to cook and my back sometimes aches during my favorite holiday — Christmas, natch — which involves many hours of happy cooking with my family to prepare the nonstop food extravaganza that makes Christmas so awesome. Wood is forgiving, ya’ll … just like Santa Claus.

Anyway. Questions? Concerns? A sense of deep, indescribable horror? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

The Big C has done away with half the fireplace in the kitchen, and he started framing it out today. Once I see it with my own eyes (and my own camera), I’ll share it with you.

Also, a big shout-out to my tireless father-in-law, who has spent the past few weeks slaving away. His cleaning prowess is so impressive the The Big C has said he’d put him on the payroll anytime. His painting and taping skillz are so impressive that we’d be weeks behind without him. Thanks, Don. We’ll give you a BandAid anytime.