This has gotta be the good life

We've been working on proposals and plans for our upcoming remodel since early this year. It's been a slow process, and for a patience-challenged person like me, painful. I'm ready to move in already! I finally got used to the wait and thought about the remodel in the future with an unknown start (and end) date, "sometime in 2014".

Except now, it's *really* starting on Monday. Our city approved the construction permit yesterday and at 7:30am on Monday, guys are going to show up to dig a hole in our yard. 

Technically, they've already started. They spent the last week building the fence that will separate the dog area from the kid area in our yard (they'll finally be able to play outside! and not in dog poo! yay!), removing our deck and hot tub to make way for the addition, and taking off the siding to prepare. We also got a new furnace since ours conveniently decided to give up last weekend.  (When it rains...)

But these things still seemed like preparation, part of the many steps and meetings we've had since April. We still didn't have a *real date* when construction would start, and consequently, didn't have the project plan of when it is supposed to be done.

But now? It's ON. And this means we need to get moving on all the interior selections - bathroom counters, flooring, paint. Cabinet hardware and lighting. There are a million tiny decisions that all affect the final price. Many of them are things we genuinely don't have an opinion about, and each item has hundreds of choices. I totally understand why President Obama doesn't choose his own clothes each day. It makes my brain tired, too, to have to evaluate tons of different, mostly equal options about things that aren't going to really affect the quality of our lives.

TJ and I are pretty good at working through decision-y stuff like this. It's very similar to when we were tossing around names for the girls - I bring a handful of options and ask him to choose, or at least eliminate the ones he hates. He brings a few options as well, sometimes. 

There have been a few perfect, lightning-bolt, "that's it!" choices so far, just like with our girls' names. The countertop in the girls' bathroom is Cambria Whitney, a sparkly engineered quartz that's mostly white with silver glittery specks. I love me some sparkle. The photo does not do this justice.

The cabinets in the master bathroom are going to be a deep espresso, almost black. In the girls' bathroom, they'll be a rich reddish brown. Both are shaker-style with very clean lines, like the kitchen cabinets we redid in 2004 and still love.

We found a carpet style that we both like that's got a sort of irregular horizontal line pattern in it, but can't finalize the color. We know we want laminate flooring through the downstairs, including the playroom and craftroom, but again, can't narrow down a color. 

We have no freakin' idea what kind of floor we want in either bathroom. To reduce costs we want to consider alternatives to tile, but TJ hated the funky Marmoleum.

We haven't really thought about paint at all, except that T is VERY SURE she wants pink. I hate taupe-y colors and things that are not-really-a-color. TJ does not want our house to look like Rainbow Brite threw up in it.

So we're kind of stuck and still have a ton of decisions to go. Luckily we have a neighbor who just earned a certificate in Interior Design and she's going to help us. Our first meeting with her is today and I'm so excited to get some of these things narrowed down.  

All these decisions are floating around in an "open loop" inside my head, and it's bugging me.  I can't visualize the room from all these individual pieces - it's so different from putting together a scrapbook page or a card because I can't just lay it all out and look at the end result.

But oh, the luxury of getting to design brand new living space. Lest you think I'm complaining, I realize this is totally a first world "problem". I am so grateful for this chance to make our house into exactly what we need.