We picked out the stone!

Yesterday Jeff and I went to the stone showroom and picked out the stone that's going to be around the foundation of the house and used in the exterior fireplace. Here it is!



Up close, it's got little pieces of shiny quartz in it that add some sparkle. We think it will contrast nicely with the dark red siding. :)

We also spent a good chunk of the day yesterday at Home Depot getting some more ideas. I think we finally have a better idea as to what our kitchen is going to look like. I finally gave up trying to pull in the super-dark espresso brown cabinets - they just weren't working with the flooring and the countertops we had in mind. So now we're leaning more towards a soft nut brown - still a rich color, but not quite as dark. Something like this:



We think the flooring is going to be a porcelain tile that looks like slate. Something in neutral browns, kind of like the flooring in this picture:



And finally, we want the focal point to be the granite countertops. We found a beautiful slab at a local granite store - unfortunately they didn't let me take pictures. But I found some similar pictures online to give you an idea:



So that's about it! No update as to when we might break ground. As I understand it, everything's ready to go - we're just waiting for the weather to warm up. I think our builder said we'll need 3-4 consecutive days above freezing in order to pour the concrete.

Now, if we could just get the weather to cooperate...