Bathroom sink

How do we feel about wall-mount sinks? This one's pretty and petite, and goes with my theme nicely - but you'll see the plumbing underneath, won't you? Then again I'm probably changing the exposed plumbing anyway, and don't they make decorative traps?

Appliances

Opportunism reigns (I figure I have all summer to troll the floor-model specials) but here are my tentative picks for the other appliances:

Microwave:

 

GE Profile over-the-range convection microwave (ignore the MSRP). This is the mini-Advantium, smaller and cheaper than the wall oven but with all the features - it bakes and microwaves at the same time, if you want it to, for super-quick space-age cooking; and it's said to be a good enough oven for cookie making. Originally I wanted a double-oven range, and this seems like a graceful compromise. I'd be happy to take it in white if I end up with a non-stainless stove.

Range:

Fisher & Paykel, 5 burners, convection, no digital controls, and as little stainless steel as possible for a "pro-style" range.

Dishwasher:

Sigh. I'm still torn between the cheaper GE Spacemaker with great reviews, and the Bosch with better resale value. Maybe there's a third, happier option out there.

Countertop collywobbles ...

I went back to a store today that has Caesarstone Misty Carrera installed on a large kitchen island - to see a large expanse of it - and all I can say is, eh. It's kind of dull, in every sense - greyish and matte and boring. And it would look dingy next to a bright white farmhouse sink. The Caesarstone Rosemary (which they had a large sample of, but no installation) wasn't grabbing me either.

Maybe it's time to look again at natural stone. I wandered into their back lot and - aha! - a green serpentine hissed at me from a nearby tree - "here, take this apple" - no, wait, wrong story; but it was that seductive.

I don't think I want that piece of serpentine - for one thing it's foreign-sourced (if I use stone, I want it to be mined in Vermont, not Taiwan), for another because they wanted to charge me an awful lot of money for it (I think they added an extra $500 as soon as I mentioned Manhattan).

But why not serpentine? Sure it's kind of loud and outré - but I only have 17 sq. ft. total counterspace, and it'll be horizontal (I don't want a stone backsplash). And I swoon over the green-on-green. (The only other granites I've liked at all have been green - though more in the smushed-peas range.)

Serpentine is technically a marble, not a granite - but its chemical composition means that it doesn't react to acid the way marble does. It's pretty much impervious, I believe it doesn't get sealed, and it stays shiny even on the outside of buildings. It has a rich, mysterious, Versailles or Hermitage look to me.

Of course my tiling plan is all boulversé now - after much experimentation in the store, I discovered that you can't really use any field tile next to it except a light zen-tea green (not that I mind tea green, in fact it's one of my favorite decorating colors) ... which means what, exactly, for the deco tiles? Hmmm.

Here are some pictures of Vermont-sourced serpentine. It seems less wildly veiny than the Taiwan stuff I saw, which is probably a good thing:

What do you think?

Tweaking the cabinets ...

So my last layout was perfect till I tried to put doors on it. Then the patchworkiness started to clash with the door styles and it all got to be too much.

So I switched the leftmost top cabinets to put them in line with the rest .. and came up with a few door ideas. (As always, click to make the pictures bigger, and use your imagination to make the cabinets on the window wall match the others.)

Here it is, with lots of glass:

Airy, but not very practical - glass cabinets are nice for dishes, but you've got to have someplace to hide the pasta boxes and the Fantastic bottle too.

Another version, with less glass:

Eh. And then there's the over-the-top (but surprisingly not over-the-budget) repro Stickley inlay concept. [Before you look at the next picture, keep in mind that the cabinets will actually be stained a medium-brown color, and that the inlay panels will match, not contrast with, the stiles around them, like so.]

There would be an inlay panel on the door of the blind corner cabinet under the window, too.

What do we think?

Playing with colors ...

Still on the kitchen. I just found out that there's a Daltile showroom in Manhattan, where I can see the field tiles (I hope) in person.

Meanwhile, noodling with the color samples online .... the big squares are field tile colors, the little inserts are deco tile colors (ignore the designs) - I probably want to use only two or three colors altogether, and I don't want the field tiles too dark. See any combos you like? (Click to make the images bigger.)

Colors for the kitchen

This is the color (and look) I'm aiming for on the cabinets:

These are the color choices for the L'Esperance dogwood and daylily tiles:

The L'Esperance field tiles are too expensive, so I'm using Daltile's "Rittenhouse Square" subway tiles - here are the colors available:

Which colors do I want to use for the field and deco tiles? I'm thinking a blue, green, and gold theme.


The countertops will be either Caesarstone Misty Carrera:

or Caesarstone Rosemary:

What else has color in the room? The sink is white; the exposed appliances will be white or stainless (unless the floor-model fairy blesses me again, with a mint-julep Viking stove or something), the ceiling will be white, the floors are oak and will probably be light rather than dark.

Details, details ...

Topic of the day: shower curtains vs. shower doors.

Curiously, the previous tenant must not have taken showers - or he must not have cared about getting water on the floor. There's no shower curtain rod or door arrangement at all. (No showerhead either - just a pipe stem jutting out of the wall.)

First what I can't have: no swinging frameless glass shower door for me. There's no place for it to swing to. One expensive purchase averted.

My glass door choices come down to sliding or folding. Sliding doors would need to be supported on the open end somehow (it's a corner tub, not set in an alcove), probably by at least a short wall. That would make my tiny bath tinier. Folding doors, which are really cool (they fold up like an accordion), don't need another support. But they get mixed reviews on actually keeping the water in, and they'd need somewhere to fold into - e.g. it would be a lot of bulk at the head of the tub, more decorative maybe when you're not using it, but interfering with taking a comfortable tub bath. And either way, you'd be putting your elbow through the glass whenever you used the loo .. and the room would look chopped-up and small.

So it's back to the shower curtain. Sigh. I've lived all my life with shower curtains. I wanted to try something different. Shower curtains blow in and stick to you rather than the to the tub wall. They can't be cleaned except by actually taking them down and washing them. And with a tub that has more than one open side and a high ceiling, you need an L-shaped bar, at least two curtains (sometimes three sewn together), the standard length comes out too short, and then you've got all this bulky curtain at both the head and foot of the tub ...

 But wait! They've come out with a better mousetrap (or at least a better L-shaped shower curtain rod). You know how some draperies hang on rods with tracks? They've imported that concept into shower world -

Another version - which can be mounted to the ceiling (though that might look too hospital) -

The great thing about designing the bathroom from scratch is that the L-shaped curtain rod can actually be hung low enough to accommodate a standard-length curtain (instead of hanging it slightly too high and creating a problem).

If the curtain can flow freely around the corner, it can be bundled at the foot of the tub - next to the vanity - and not up by the window and toilet.

And they're an awful lot cheaper than shower doors. Better living through technology!

Solving the kitchen again ...

Now that the contractor has tentatively blessed my rearrangement of appliances, I had to redo the top cabinets. It wasn't so easy, because my rhythmic frieze of 24"x18" cabinets along the top looked dumb with the doors below. Here's what I came up with:

The bit by the fridge still isn't right - the fridge will really be built-in, with no gap between it and the next cabinet; and the storage above it will be as deep as the fridge, e.g. 24".

Here's a quick mock-up of my cabinet doors with this design. I know it looks amateurish - I'm using a freeware paint program to paste on the doors, that's why I can't do the ones under the window: I can't get it to do perspective. In real life they'll match the others of course.

I'm afraid it's getting too busy. I don't know if I should still mix the door styles - e.g. notice that the bottom cabinets on either side of the stove are different from all the other cabinet doors. I've discarded the third style in my mix completely now. But I do like the puzzle patchwork way in which the door sizes and shapes are arranged.

The world is my oyster ....

One thing the contractor explained to me is that I can’t put a slipper tub up against the wall. If a tub is designed to be freestanding, it must clear the wall, and you have to curtain the wall side as well or you’ll have water problems.

So much for that idea. It’s freeing, in a way, because now the bathroom style doesn’t have to be retro. It can be modern – or mod, which is retro in a different way.

I’ll choose the tub purely on parameters: as narrow (<30”) yet deep (water level to the overflow) as can be had. It will be more or less traditional and boxy, with a straight edge on the long exposed side (all of the tubs designed to go against a wall I’ve seen so far do), so I can have a shower door. I’m mighty tempted to use a glass door that folds away like an accordion – it would make the room much less cluttered than either a traditional door or a curtain – but I’d still need some space for it to fold into (must check the specs) and it’s pricy.

Here’s one concept for the bathroom:

Brown emperador marble mosaic on the floor.

These are mini-bricks, 1/2 inch x 1 inch; they come on a backing sheet. The cool thing about this marble is that it’s so brown-and-white streaky, like white and milk and dark chocolate ice cream swirled together. I ordered a sample, and every little brick is different. It makes for a nice visual texture – and as for the tactile texture, it’s shiny but with enough grout to give traction. (Coffee grout or pearl grout?)

Second choice, ming green hexes on the floor.

Hexes are traditional for prewar bathrooms (though not green marble hexes). They’d give it a lighter, serener, more spa-like look. But I’m probably using green and blue tones in the kitchen.

Mother of pearl glass tiles on the wall. I’ve tried for better pictures:

It comes in both a 1/2 inch x 1 inch mini-brick pattern and a 1 inch square pattern. (At least I’m pretty sure those are the same tile; I’m ordering a sample of the mini-brick to be sure.) I’m tiling to the ceiling, and the contrast can be subtle – squares on the bottom and bricks on top, or squares by the sink and toilet and bricks by the tub and wall-opposite-the-sink …

And then there’s the ceiling. The contractor pointed out that, though he certainly could tile the bathroom ceiling for me, it would be a waste of money if my upstairs neighbors ever had water problems that affected the ceiling again. The ceiling is suspiciously lumpy as it is, and the hallway outside the bathroom has damage on the floor and had a gaping hole in the ceiling when I first saw the apartment. I have no idea how long ago that damage happened, why it happened, or whether the problem is permanently fixed (though there’s been no sign of trouble in the five months since I made my bid).

That’s a reason to put a ceiling fixture in. (I want to put a hard-wired lighted vanity mirror over the sink rather than a medicine chest – like so –

 
and I’ll need another light, either a sconce on the wall or a ceiling fixture; the right ceiling fixture might cast shadows that detract from the imperfect ceiling. Since there’s no wiring yet for either, I get to pick.)

What about a wood molding where the tile meets the uneven ceiling? Something ornate and Asiatic, maybe. Wood is trendy in bathrooms now (though I’m not sure how practical is – maybe okay up by the ceiling, if you choose the right variety of wood?). But that would make it more spa than mod – and I was saving the chinoiserie theme for the dining nook.

I really like this sink.

It’s not expensive (in fact it’s all over Home Depot) but it’s got something that only a few other (very expensive) pedestal sinks have: an integrated towel bar. When you have no wall space, putting a little towel under the sink is brilliant. Unfortunately it’s 24” wide, a little wider than I’d prefer. Also, a friend of mine has the same sink in his bath, and he says that the design of the towel bar is defective: the screws holding it up are anchored only in plastic expanders, they have no nuts on the other side, so the bar sags after a while. The guy in Home Depot thinks that there’s a hollow space behind the sink so that you could reach in and put nuts before you installed it. We’ll see.

 I love this faucet

but I'm afraid it may be a little too big for my sink (and my budget).

As for the toilet - it's a flushometer now, and the unit I saw for sale left it that way (but replaced the pedestrian flushometer hardware and bowl with stylish Toto stuff). The suburbanites among you may be saying "whaaaa ...?" right now. Flushometer means there's no tank, just a metal pipe behind the bowl and a handle for flushing; the water comes out at high pressure while you hold the handle. Like the toilets in schools and train stations. Prewar buildings also often have flushometer toilets, and some buildings don't let you switch to a tank. Dunno what my building's policy is, but even if I have the option, I might go flushometer again. It saves a couple of inches, and it goes with the character of the building. What do you think? Too horrifying, or suitably pre-war?

Quick new kitchen idea -

Thanks to the ever-helpful folks at ikeafans.com, I had an insight on the kitchen this morning. If the drains allow (gas hookups can be flexible within reason, can't they, since it's just a hose?) I think this might be a better arrangement for the appliances (didn't have time to fill in the top cabs yet, but they'll be like in the last design).

Meeting a contractor - who I hope will be mine - this afternoon.

Home, home on the range ...

I grew up with a magnificent Anderson range that wasn't just older than me - it's as old as my Mom. Several tons of white and black enamel over cast iron, oven that lights with a match, 36" wide with a separate broiler and griddle and soup well on the side - but it cooked and baked like a dream (still does, in fact, but it's my mother's, not mine). My grandmother's last Caloric outlasted her, dying after 40+ years of hard and graceful service.

So my main experience (apart from crappy stoves in rentals, which don't count) is with quality old fashioned ranges: turn the knob and the gas comes on, set the oven by squinting at the little lines on the bakelite dial. And I love to cook and bake.

 Fast-forward to the 21st century appliance showroom. My only choices seem to be -

1) computerized monstrosities, with oven controls on the backsplash so that you have to reach across the hot stove (whose idea was that?), and a button labeled "chicken nuggets", or

2) heavy, clunky, industrial-looking "pro style" ranges in hard-to-clean stainless steel.

I can't figure out which features I'm supposed to want.

What's with the simmer burner? Can't you just turn the burner down really low on a new stove, the way we do on our old Andersen? "Sealed burners" seem like a nice idea - I've never had them before, is there any downside?

And then there's the mystery of convection. I thought I remembered, from high school physics, that convection was the way all ovens cooked - hotter air displaces cooler air and it all flows around in a circle, by nature. But in the new-stove context, "convection" seems to mean that there's a fan - with or without a heating element - to help things bake more evenly, or faster, or both. I'm used to an oven that bakes evenly all on its own, and I don't understand how "faster" works, short of turning up the temperature. (And while we're at it, how do self-cleaning ovens work?)

I suppose the electronics are inevitable - they don't still make ranges with pilot lights, do they? (Too bad - I'm used to using the pilot light area of the stove top to keep things lukewarm - to soften butter, to hold a savory tart that I'm snacking on so that it doesn't get too cold). But I also read that the electronics are the first (and second, and third, and fifth ..) thing to break down.

I guess I'm drifting toward the "pro-style" side of the room - though the trouble there is that I (peace to you that differ) think that stainless steel is ugly as well as impractical; I'd far prefer a nice white enamel. And it's galling to think of paying so very, very much for a stove, when even that seems to be a compromise.

Where is the stove for me?

The funny thing about dishwashers ...

So I'm looking for an 18" wide dishwasher. Fortunately and unfortunately, there are very few choices - and even fewer when you want trim panels.

There are 2 GE models (Spacemaker and Profile), a Bosch, a couple Mieles, and a Smeg. They range from about $650 (for the GE Spacemaker - the one with a dial rather than hidden digital controls) to a jaw-dropping $1300 for a Miele.

Which one gets the best reviews? The GE Spacemaker - the cheapest one - consistently! The others have more features, and deeper tubs; they do fancy things like "delay start" and "quick wash" for parties; their trim panels totally conceal the controls; they're quieter; etc.. But when it comes down to actually getting the dishes 1) to fit, 2) clean, and 3) dry, everybody loves the GE Spacemaker best.

Which begs the question, who's everybody? When you read restaurant or hotel or book reviews online, you can be fairly sure that the reviewer has eaten more than one meal, stayed in more than hotel, and read more than one book in the last year or so. But once you buy a good dishwasher, you have it for a good long while; you might be able to compare it to the one you used to have 12 years ago, but you can't truly compare it to others on the market now.

It may simply be that the GE Spacemaker is more popular - after all, it's less ridiculously-priced than the other 18" options (why, oh why, is smaller always more expensive?) - and people who buy it like to feel, and say, that they've gotten a good deal. If you spend >$1000 for a fancy European dishwasher, on the other hand, it had better be perfect, or you'll feel justified going online and whining about it.

Nevertheless, the GE Spacemaker seems like a solid appliance from a good American (well, sort-of-American) brand. And it follows my grandfather's rule of "fewer controls, less to break". I'm sold.

Is it silly to put the cheapest dishwasher next to the most expensive fridge? Who cares? The next buyer can upgrade; I want what I want.

Rub-a-dub-dub ...

... I need a bathtub, which one should I choose?

My Sanijet fantasies have come to naught. The narrowest models need at least 31.5" width to install. My current tub is a little less than 29" wide, and it's already a tight squeeze. I don't have the extra inches. And I'm not crazy about the only two models that would sort-of-almost-fit, and they're awfully expensive for so awkward a compromise.

Funny how quickly I get over things. I discovered Sanijet several years ago - I picked out the one I liked best back when my mother was contemplating adding a second bathroom - practically my first thought, in buying this apartment to renovate, was "Oooh good! Finally I can get my Sanijet!" (I even specifically asked if it would be permitted by the alteration agreement, before I went into contract.) And now here I am, drowning that little dream in the bathtub (so to speak) without too much regret. (Of course if my contractor says we can squeeze a few extra inches out of the back wall, all bets are off.)

Maybe one of my friends will buy one and let me try it out.

Meanwhile, back to the bathroom I've got. Here's a picture (don't laugh) -

The tub in the picture is 66" long and a little less than 29" wide. The sink is 19" front to back and 25" wide. The toilet bowl (without seat) is about 14.5" wide, and yes that's a wall you see just to the right of the toilet. On the other hand, the window behind the toilet is gloriously enormous - it extends 7.5' up the wall. Right now it's totally covered with brown woodgrain contact paper (I kid you not) but I expect that it will get some filtered light.


The faucets - as you can see - are on the wall to the side of the tub. The showerhead is on the same wall as the window. And the drain is at the end of the tub near the sink, not at the end of the tub near the showerhead. (Why???)

These are the dimensions I'm stuck with, and I can't move the fixtures around. The unit I saw at the open house just left the original tub and reglazed it. My problem with that is 1) it's too shallow, and 2) my tub's in bad shape.

No, I do NOT want a stall shower. I'm a bath person. I need a tub I can lie down in, and be covered in bubbles. I checked out of a hotel once because it had no bathtub; I'm not going to live without one in my own house.

So what bathtub will fit? The standard width these days is 30" or 32". One option, interestingly enough, is a clawfoot or slipper tub. Like this:

28" wide, 63" long, water 14" deep. Happy. The high end would go by the window. Which gives you less elbow room when you're sitting on the toilet, but c'est la vie.

There's a slightly narrower model - only 25" wide - but would it be comfortable? Especially for showering?

A slipper tub like one of these would look cute. It has a nice backrest design, and it holds deep water. I had a clawfoot tub (though not slipper) when I lived in DC, long and wide enough for me to do a dead man's float without touching the sides. I spent countless happy hours in it studying - my Gilbert's outlines got all wiggly from being wet.

And then there's this one. It's named for me - "Susanna" - and it even comes as an airjet tub (though I don't think for me, since I'm not sure the building would allow an airjet and I have no idea where I'd fit the mechanicals).

Stunning, ain't it? And it would fit (28" wide, 66" long). Though it needs a bigger room to show it off. And it weighs, and costs, a lot - it's solid resin, not hollow acrylic like the others.

I'm assuming I can't even think about cast iron.  This is a great size and shape - 67" long, 27.5" wide, super deep) but it weighs 324 pounds empty -

- but wait! I just found an acrylic version of the same tub.
All of these tubs would need a shower curtain - they're not shaped right for glass doors. The trouble with shower curtains is that they stick to you (static electricity, or laminar flow, or something). And with an acrylic rather than metal tub, you can't even tame the curtain with magnets in the hem. Also, you end up making custom shower curtains - sewing several curtains and liners together, or starting fresh with fabric, to get two sides around the tub. (Though with a 5+ foot long tub, do I really need to curtain the far end?) And where does all the stupid bulky curtain go when you're not taking a shower? Smushed in front of the window?

Or I could go totally nuts and get a folding tub screen.
Also, it's a steep step up getting into and out of the shower (but you get used to it), and it's trouble to clean underneath the tub.

The other choice is a more conventional bathtub, but narrow enough and deep. There's a German company called Kaldewei (everything tiny is European) that makes bathtubs a small as 27.5" wide and 16" deep. Duravit has some pretty narrow ones too. With those I could use sliding shower doors (no space for a hinged door). I'd rather have doors - but then the toilet would be like a phone booth, with hard high walls hemming it in on both sides.

Hmmmm.

Radiator covers

So I took the ugly metal cover off of one of my two radiators, to look and measure. Here's what I saw:

Not what I expected. It's not very tall, and it's set into a preformed metal  niche under the window (the upper boundary of which is a metal windowsill).

So I can't have the sort of boxlike custom radiator cover that doubles as a windowseat. This will be simple: I just need attractive hinged doors to replace the ugly flat metal cover. (Why hinged? Ever live with radiators? They create dust - who knows how - so you've got to be able to get at them to vacuum. This one has obviously not been vacuumed in a long, long time. There are feathers in it!). I believe the doors can be wood - I know they need to be slatted, or have holes in them somehow, so that air can circulate - and I hope they can be pretty.

The space is 64.5" wide by 28" high. Ideas welcome.

The metal windowsill, I'm not sure what to do about. It's been painted  a zillion times, and looks worn, but on the other hand I think it's an integral, welded part of the radiator niche, so I can't mess with it. Can I refinish it somehow - or cover it with some sort of thin veneer and edge molding?

Oh. My. God.

I got the refrigerator! I don't have a contractor, an architect, or a kitchen yet, but I have a refrigerator coming on Friday. Here's how it came about.

As you know, I'm a little obsessive. I went back to Home Depot and PC Richard in Chelsea today. I looked at (among other things) every 24" refrigerator they had - which is to say pretty much every 24" refrigerator in existence, since there aren't that many. And tried to persuade myself that I could compromise and get a non-trim-panel LG or GE, since the trim-panel ones are 3x  or 4x the price.

I got to the very last row - the narrow aisle behind  the big PC Richard neon sign and the window - and then I saw it!

As Is - Last One - 70% Off

The Liebherr HC1001, list price $2700, on sale for $809. The queen of built-in refrigerators. The one you see in all the high-end cabinet displays. Coming soon to my kitchen!

It's got the full manufacturer's warranty, everything inside is present and perfect, and the salesman even pulled it out for me so I could see the back. The manager didn't want to sell it to me - he thought the price must be a mistake - but in the end he did.

Kitchen design revisited

I was so busy worrying about fitting things in horizontally, I really didn't think about the vertical aspect of my kitchen.

I want my cabinets to run all the way up to the ceiling. For one thing, I love that look - I grew up with it. For another, I need the storage space. (I have to get on a stepstool to reach the third shelf of any cabinet anyway; by the time I'm climbing for 6.5 feet I may as well be climbing for 8.5 feet.) But most importantly, I hate to dust - and the space between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling will always get dusty. I'm not crazy about soffits or dropped ceilings, and in any event my window is so tall that either would look stupid.

So ... the kitchen is 102" high, more or less. The bottom cabinets take up 36". Standard backsplashes are 18" (though apparently it's okay to go down as low as 15"). Regular top cabinets come in 30" and 39" sizes.

Doesn't add up, does it, no matter how much you rearrange those numbers?

But in the "cabinet over refrigerator" and "fan cabinet" categories, there are several smaller height choices: 15", 18", 24". Mix and match and here you go:

Changes from the last layout:

• The top corner cabinet to the right of the window is gone. The standard one didn't really fit, and the helpful people at ikeafans.com talked me through why my clever modification of it wouldn't work.
• The fridge is 24" wide now. It will still be trim-panel, to match the cabinets.
• There's a little more slack between appliances. Sure it would be great to have an extra 9" set of shelves or 12" pullout cabinet near the sink - but it would be even greater to have all of the doors and drawers open without hitting one another. We'll see if I need that much slack, or if something else will fit.
• The sink will actually have drawers under it! A big full-depth one at the bottom, a half-depth one above it (to accomodate the plumbing behind), and a false one, as usual, on top. Thank you again, ikeafans! 
• The microwave will probably still go over the stove. The Ikea Kitchen Planner didn't like my microwave this time, for some reason.

It looks very Euro now, doesn't it? I need to think about my cabinet doors again - whether and how I can make Mission style work in those shapes. Maybe some of the top doors should be salvaged stained glass - like these:

Bath bubbles

I'm leaning toward the mother-of-pearl tile after all - I'll try to photograph it again, for those of you following from home. It's not iridescent; it's just white and swirly and shimmery, like actual pieces of shell - coquilles rather than oysters.Still mulling over what to put with it - gold or silver or wood-like slivers of stained glass. I think I want to be nontraditional and use a medium-dark floor in the bathroom, something in the brown or blue-grey family.

If the Sanijet tub of my dreams won't fit (still waiting to hear back from them on that) I could be happy in a slipper tub too - and they come as narrow as 25". Even with airjets.

And how about this for a light fixture? It's called "Lilypad" by Possini Euro, and there's a wall sconce version too.

 

  Meanwhile, there's another unit for sale in the building that had its first open house today. I like my layout better - though they made some clever choices with theirs. But they have the exact same bathroom, down to stupid pipe-chase next to the toilet, and they managed to make it look good. They didn't change the tile or tub - they just reglazed.

Tile, glorious tile!

There's bad news and there's good news.

First the bad news: L'Esperance got back to me, and unfortunately their handmade field tiles are way out of my range (given that I'm tiling 70-110 sq. ft. of kitchen). The sixteen-or-so dogwood and lily feature tiles won't break my piggie bank, but I need to find a different field tile to go with them.(Click here if you don't know what I'm talking about.) I was afraid this would happen.

Now the good news: There are other hand-glazed tiles out there that might work. I found the Solistone Mission line in my local Home Depot, of all places. They look well-made, neither overly sleek nor falsely antiqued, though I don't know where on that palette I'd want to land. And they're a quarter of the price.

Isn't it odd that "Mission" means two entirely different styles - Mexican on the West Coast and Wright/Stickley on the East?

But wait, there's more! Another of my dearest tile fantasies is handmade Moroccan ceramic tile in funky arabesque shapes. (Cue Robin Leach: "you can't afford it!") But what about handmade Mexican tile, in the same arabesques and dreamy blues? The Muslims conquer Spain, the Spanish conquer Mexico, and globalization avant la lettre brings tiles like these halfway round the world:

(scale: each of the individual tiles in these mosaics is 3 or 4 inches long or wide.)

I've got to have them on my big kitchen wall. (Unless they go in the bathroom ...) I wouldn't mind them on the backsplash, but I want to do something with the L'Esperance dogwoods and daylilies too.

Can I make them all work together? And how? I need a really fantastic tile guy.

Tiles du jour: glass for the bathroom

Let's get the wild idea out of the way first. This is called "gradient tile". It's a mini stained glass mosaic - it comes on backing sheets - and you buy it in "columns" of seven or eight 12x12 sheets (you see one column in the picture - click to make it bigger). You install the sheets vertically in sequence, and the tile shades from dark to light (or from light to dark, if you install them upside down) as your eye travels up the wall. You'd think that sort of thing would involve an expert mosaicist, placing tesserae one by one on the wall, and cost the earth. Ah, the joys of mechanization! It's actually very reasonable, prefab. If my bathroom weren't so small and lumpy already ....



This is fun stuff - glass with wrinkly silver backing - you're seeing a 12x12 square (as you will throughout this post, unless otherwise noted). As a generous accent tile, with white bricks?



Stained glass ripply ovals. Again, probably as an accent with something else, e.g. white stained glass bricks or squares.




Clear and frosted, slightly green:



This is lovely stuff - I have a sample of it - the picture does not do it justice (click to see it bigger). It's a very thin glass tile that really looks like mother-of-pearl.

The refrigerator question

The refrigerator is generating much of my kitchen planning angst.

Where to put it is fairly clear – in front right corner by the door. It has to be on the right wall, because the left is too shallow; it has to be by the door because otherwise it would stick out and block the window.

It’s got to be counter-depth or I’ll lose too much of the closet behind it.

But how big should it be? A full-size counter-depth side-by-side, 35 inches wide? Or something less enormous, like a 24 inch wide compact model?

I use my freezer much more than I use my fridge. I shop for fresh food on my walk home from the subway, and I tend to buy only as much as I plan to cook or eat that day or the next morning. My fridge holds a few lonely containers of yogurt, milk, condiments, and iced tea. My freezer is packed with leftovers, snacks, soup, veggies, rice, boca burgers, etc. etc. Though as my mother points out, you can't entertain guests as a working gal without doing a lot of cooking and prep the day before - the fridge has to be adequate when you need it.

I will never use a water dispenser (cold tap is cold enough for me), and an ice maker is just a waste of space (alone, I never use ice; entertaining, I can just pick up a bag in the liquor store).

I was feeling compelled to put in a full-sized fridge because I’m from suburbia and “real” kitchens have normal fridges; I associate compact with dorm-room. But the plurality of responses to my GardenWeb post asking about layout said “get a smaller fridge already!” or words to that effect.

So I’ve been persuaded to go with a counter-depth, 24" wide fridge (and reclaim twelve more inches of counter space! woohoo!). I've looked at pretty much all of them (there aren't that many), in person or online.

I want it to be tall - I have 8.5 foot ceilings, if I'm going to compromise on width I should get more height. And I want to maximize freezer capacity, because I use the freezer much more than the fridge. Oh, and I'd rather not pay $4000 for it, as I'm not made of money.

Here's my next problem: all ones I like best don't come trim-panel. And it's very important to me to have the fridge disappear into the line of cabinets. I know that you can get a custom trim-panel mounting kit from Frigo - they say they can make them for any appliance - but what if it doesn't have a totally flat front? What if it's a little curvy and bowed, like this LG or this GE? Fitting trim panels to them looks like it would be a lot more involved (though maybe not - anyone know?).

And then I got to wondering - can wood veneer be applied to metal? Wood veneer comes in thin flexible sheets - it's been used on curvy furniture for centuries. Can it be bonded to the door and exposed side of a fridge? Or would it not work for some reason? Or look stupid? It wouldn’t technically match the cabinets, as they’ve got raised moldings etc.; but it might coordinate – especially if I splurged on a Stickley veneer inlay.

Or should I give it up and just pick one of the suboptimal panel-ready models? (Suboptimal because they're either twice as expensive, or have dollhouse-sized freezers.)

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