It's getting close

I know you haven't heard from me in a while.  That is because planning for this kitchen renovation has hijacked my life.  However, the demo starts on Thursday!  I am ready to stop making decisions and start doing stuff.  It seems like the decisions never end and they are all inter-related, so when you make a decision about one thing it affects other things you decided on 2 months ago.  We keep going around in decision circles.  The cabinets and appliances have been ordered (which is probably a good thing because I can always come up with something to change.)  Our current issue is the flooring.

Originally, we were going to tile our kitchen and dining room.  However, the remainder of the house has hardwood floors, and the dining room is very visible from the living room.  Plus, my feet are always cold and the thought of cold tile in the morning makes me shiver.  So, we decided to put hardwood in the kitchen...which means we have to refinish the entire house to match...which means I have to pack up the whole house and move it...which also means that maybe we should replace all of the doors and baseboards (which we were going to do but then decided against because I didn't want to have to move all of the furniture)...but maybe now it's too late to order doors.  

So, we decided on hardwood, but we still have to decide on the color.  Our contractor said that we could look at floor stains once the floor is sanded, but I'm a little impatient.  I went to Home Depot and bought some red oak boards and cans of stain.

I selected Minwax "Classic Gray" (top) and "Weathered Oak" (bottom).   You can see how different they are from our current floors.  I don't like strong yellow or red undertones in wood floors, so I'm trying to "gray" them out.  We may mix the two, so they don't turn out too dark.  The funny thing is that when I mentioned the "gray" to my husband, he said, "I don't like gray."   That stopped me in my tracks, because half of the kitchen is going to be gray.  I showed him the wall color and the countertops and the floor boards and the backsplash, and he said, "That's not gray."  Well, OK then.  Evidently, we see color very differently.

Today, we (I mean, an AT&T repair man) successfully re-routed the modem and moved the computer to the basement, so I will be able to keep you updated on our project...