Saturday

Goals for the Day:
1. Doorknobs
2. Front door handle
3. Ceiling lamps for vaulted ceiling over stairway, plus living room and dining room
4. Pendants for kitchen peninsula
5. Tiles for bathroom

7.30am:
We head down to the house with cardboard mock-ups of the different types of lights we want for the living room, dining room, and over the peninsula in the kitchen. We discuss sizes, how low or high they should be, and if we're still in agreement over the lights we've chosen.

We also discuss cutting a hole in the wall through the living room and the foyer to add more light. We were always concerned that the foyer would resemble a dungeon and well, it kind of does.

Mistake #7: buying a front door without a window.

Our builder said he could easily cut a hole and it should look pretty cool, though it now limits our real estate for pictures and artwork. Oh well.

Then we head to the garage to take a look at our vanity, which we bought 6 months ago in what we thought was a dark wood color.

It's not.

It's a dark grey woodtone color that's really weird. What the? Did the store screw up? No, I did.

We can't believe it.
(this picture does not accurately demonstrate how weird the color is)


Mistake #23: Actually look at the vanity you bought, idiot.

Realizing we've wasted the last MONTH shopping for bathroom tiles for a vanity we don't even have, we decide we'd better head out pronto and get shopping!

Mistake #64: Get your tiles first, THEN buy a vanity that goes with them.

9.00am:
Drive to South Auckland (we're in the north). This part of town is rumored to have lots of tile stores. We navigate through horrible highways, almost get lost, and wind up at three grotesque tile stores with designs ranging from Inexpensive Employee Restroom to Old Lady Powder Room circa 1978.
After passing the Church of Scientology, a handful of creepy bars and fast food joints, we decide this part of town sucks and head back to the North Shore. We're annoyed and feel like we've wasted two hours messing around in this crappy part of town when we still have so much to do. Who's hungry?

11.45am:
Frustrated and starving, we stop off for lunch and a beer. Suddenly everything seems much, much better. What are we getting so worked up for? It's just a house! No worries... we'll figure it out. House shopping is fun! Should we get another beer? Nah... we've still got a lot of work to do.


1.00pm:
We hit a bathroom store to check out their tile displays. We don't find anything useful, but I fall in love with this display featuring walls similar to Benjamin Moore's Electric Blue. Thanks to Shelby, I already have a paint swatch! I think it would be really cool to paint one of the rooms a color like this, like the downstairs bathroom or one of the guest rooms. Iain's not a fan.


1.45pm:
Drive to the lighting store. It's the same one we've visited 3 times already and they recognize us immediately. Our morning trip to the house has confirmed that we're ready to buy, but we need to decide on what color shades to get.

If this was our ONLY project, I might take weeks to visit fabric stores and find The Perfect Fabric, agonizing over modern vs retro or patterned vs solid, but lampshades are one of about 9 decisions due to be made today. We look through the swatch books and find what we want. That said, we still need to get one of these for our stairwell, and we decided to take more time with that since it's going to be a real feature. We'll do that another day.

Iain looks longingly at his ideal stairwell light but knows it doesn't really go with our decor.

I'm just kidding. Satisfied, we buy four lights:
1 drum lamp in scarlet for the dining room
1 drum lamp in this vintage cream/white pattern for the living room (below)
2 contemporary lights for over the kitchen island (pictured)



3.00pm:
Go next door to the door and handle store. Spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time comparing round doorknobs: "Does this one look pointy? I know it's round but it looks pointy. Put it next to the other one. What do you think? I think it looks pointy. Or am I just being crazy? What about that other one? Wait, how much do these cost anyway?"


3.45pm:
Head over to Bunnings Warehouse (like Home Depot) and buy $1.50 sausages from the high school selling them for new uniforms. We never eat these things but since we've been shopping for house stuff, we hit Bunnings every Saturday and every Saturday, there's a sausage stand.

3.50pm:
It's a quick bathroom break at Bunnings, then over to their doorknob selection for more discussions and comparisons. It appears that the perfectly round polished steel doorknobs we wants are around $55, while the ones our builder budgeted that appear (but aren't) slightly pointed if you really really look closely at eye level are only $30. I accept this. We also look at front door handles, but it's too overwhelming so we leave.

4.15pm:
Our favorite tile store is closed on Saturdays! How could we not know this?

Mistake #9: Know your stores and their hours

4.30pm:
We arrive at Heritage Tile and spend a rather half-hearted half hour wandering around, not really knowing what we should choose. "Well, when we thought the vanity was dark brown, this would've been perfect but now...." We revisit old favorites, disagree on most. Iain likes this one, I don't. I suggest one, Iain doesn't like it. We sort of agree on a theme: lighter floors, darker shower walls. We order some samples and vow to ask our builder how much time we have before he needs to tile. Why is this so hard??

5.15pm
I remember one tile store with a great display that might go really well with our vanity, and we excitedly head over there. It's a bold look that might look almost too modern for our house. Iain isn't a big fan.

We have another wander around but still can't really figure out what to do. Stupid vanity! We're now discussing trying to sell it on TradeMe (NZ's eBay) and buying one we actually like. If we can get rid of it, then we get one in the right color AND with the right handles!

We head for home. Tomorrow, after a Skype call with my family and a meeting with a landscaper, we'll head back out. We're hoping to have all of the decisions made before Christmas break. Then we just have to decide on carpet!

Our builder has told us we should be moved in around February.

Everyone is welcome to visit us. We'll have two guest rooms and a full guest bath, which will be great because we'll be exhausted AND broke! I can't wait.