Final Kitchen & Flooring

If you're wondering, "why has it been a month since the last update?" don't worry, we've been wondering the same thing! Since sitting down for our meeting with the Kitchen & Bath company more than a month ago, we've been waiting patiently for some sort of sketch and/or pricing update on the custom ideas that we presented. Finally, last week we received a concept drawing. Unfortunately, the island they designed was WAY bigger than we thought was appropriate for the area. The cabinet guy took our idea of a "large eat-in island" to the extreme and what he originally suggested would barely fit within the kitchen/dining room limits. So after some healthy back and forth, we locked in the following kitchen island:

We love it! The island was the biggest challenge and fortunately the third design was the winner! It's the perfect balance of massive size without sacrificing the rest of the living space. Eating and gathering space is settled!

Unfortunately, figuring out the kitchen situation has created a bit of a new problem: Flooring. It's been our intention all along to keep a carpeted living room with the rest of the downstairs being hardwood. While we were trying to figure out the kitchen layout, we learned that the standard living room carpet would have ran all the way to the foyer. That would have left an approx 5'x8' area of carpet that would have been the prime path from entry into the kitchen. In my mind, this high traffic area was guaranteed to lead to dingy and matted carpet. While we don't meet with the carpet guys for a few more weeks, it seems like the easy solution is to notch out an extra little area of hardwood for a walkway into the kitchen/dining. After a little bit of facebook feedback (thank you to everyone who agreed with me and helped me convince Jen!), this is what we came up with:

The 2nd floor and basement would each be carpet with the exception of wet areas. We're holding out hope that we can do a few upgrades to the bathroom tile work in the master but that will be budget dependent. We'll be scheduling that meeting next so cross your fingers!