Blog 14
I finally received the final drawings for the kitchen cabinets, pantry, living room cabinets, and master bath closets. I also received the kitchen cabinet door sample. It is a cream color but it will not be this style it is a shaker style. Now I can think about granite and back splash tiles.We are doing a walnut island top in the middle of the kitchen. That is a sample of it.

I need to pick out some sort of counter tops for the counters on the sides of the kitchen. These are 2 different samples but they are not working for me.

Lou and I went to market and I found some furniture.

 I will use this one below in the pool bathroom and put a vessel sink on top. I needed a low desk, only 28" high, so that it would not sit higher than the window.  I mistakenly had a custom  window made for a wall that has dirt up against it. I could not use the window on that wall so I moved the window to another wall in the pool bathroom. The window did not really fit the wall and it ended up filling the wall and being only 28 " from the floor. I did not want to see the side of a cabinet from outside of the window, so my solution was get a low cabinet (not higher than 28"from the floor) and put a tall vessel sink on top. I think I will find a black vessel sink maybe.

I bought this chest for the guest bathroom maybe. I will cut a sink into it.

I also found a chandelier that both Michael and I can live with for the living room.

Blog 13
We are ready to start the pool.  We had to get all the water out of the pool and the coping had to be removed. Notice the retaining wall and bench on the left side.

Here is all the water out of the pool.

Here the coping has been removed and the broken concrete taken up. 

Here the workers are shooting a high pressure washer to remove the old surface. The old surface is on the right side. 

Look at the photos above and see the lovely old brick wall that surrounds the pool. The wall cracked when they were removing the concrete so we had to take it down. Notice the retaining wall and bench have all been removed.

We will rebuild the circular brick wall around the back of the pool and maybe use brick for the retaining wall and sitting area around the pool like in this photo. Not sure at this stage.

Here is the forming of the tanning ledge. We will also have a bench /ledge to climb out of the pool at the other end of the pool. This photo is looking towards the road. There will be a covered patio between the pool and the road soon. (I hope)

Not much visually is happening in the house. The electrician, plumber, and AV guys are all laying wires, speakers, can lights and determining switches. It is so hard deciding if the lights are positioned correctly and where the switch should be. This photo below is in the kitchen. See the stove hood?

The work men were told to space 3 vents into the roof over hang outside, but they are not lined up correctly. These should be spaced apart. It's a good thing that this was caught before the siding was finished. You have to watch very carefully.

Time is running out to make decisions about the pool. We think we want some moving water sounds.
Do we build a shallow fountain at the deep end where the diving board is now? The recommendation is to build a small round cutout just above the light. It would be shallow so you could sit on it and it would have 3 fountains that shoot up water.

Another option is to buy a fountain and mount it onto the brick wall something like the photo below.

I also need to pick out pool tiles. I like the green look of a pool instead of Blue. I really need to pick pool surround before I pick tile.

After looking at tons of pool photos we realize that we like pool coping to match the pool decking. We are trying to find a coping to go around the pool that is the same stone that we put around the pool.I have looked at lots of stone. 

I realize that the stone around the pool needs to be larger stones. Small little bricks seem too busy around the pool. 

The beautiful large stone that we tend to really like is very expensive.

This one below is one we are considering. This is the grey color it comes in.

It comes in several sizes so it would be a random pattern like below.

We are still waiting on samples to see what the coping looks like.