Decisions, decisions, oh wait, new decisions

Even if you made your decisions ages ago, sometimes they don't work out for one reason or another. Last week we had two instances of this.

Instance #1: We had chosen our tile for the downstairs bathroom aeons ago. Late last summer, in fact. We chose Walker-Zanger Roku Rain Matte glass tile (as pictured on the wall in the image to the left), in a 6"x12" size. It was "reasonably" priced, and was a really nice compliment to the Viva Ceramic Xilo gray tile we'd chosen for the floor (although the image at the right doesn't really do it justice).

Our contractor contacted us early in the week to let us know that the Roku tile in the size we wanted was not available until July (!), and suggested that we might use a gloss finish instead. I thought about it, and the matte finish was particularly important to me for a lot of reasons, maintenance being one, and looks the other. Changing the wall tile would require changing the floor tile, a decision I really didn't want to reopen! However, it turns out that the tile guy goes through some distributor, who in turn goes through the factory. So, once deciding that I wasn't going to change the tile, I called Walker-Zanger, and found out there was 70 sqft of the tile available now (but it's not enough), and a shipment coming in in June. So after some back and forth (they are very busy there!) I ordered 152 sqft of the tile I want, which will come in the June shipment (mid June). This should be plenty of time to install given where we are now, and is certainly much better than July! How much do you suppose 152 sqft of tile weighs? > 600 lbs!!! I guess I'm not surprised, given that the tile samples I lugged back from NYC a year ago caused my bags to be overweight.

Instance #2 (my bad): We had chosen what I thought to be a really cool-looking (and functional!) Franke faucet for the prep sink. We chose the other kitchen faucets based on that particular faucet. I failed to notice, however, that the faucet we chose was 36" high (!) which would certainly look dorky adjacent to an open bar counter. Good thing our contractor pointed it out! So now we will need to change the faucet, and there really isn't another Franke faucet that I like that also has the functions I want (pull-out spray), so we're going to switch manufacturers, either to KWC (which breaks my heart, because the faucet I really want, the KWC Ono, isn't available in the US until the fall) or to Dornbracht. The key is that none of them make an instant-hot dispenser, so we also have to choose an instant hot that will look good with the faucet. I'm going to go look at faucets today and make a final (new) decision. Hopefully I won't goof up this time.

Other decisions we've made are on the plynyl weave and color (for the office and laundry room), and on the office door (which we'll get from Knoll Textiles, rather than from 3-form). I'll get some matching plynyl mats made for the kitchen too.

Decisions still left to be made are: Caesarstone kitchen countertop color (we're thinking Cinder at the moment), and paint colors inside and out. Wow.

And now, onto packing and getting ready to move...