decorating | Hicks House

Due to the fact that we bought the completed house from the builder we were able to negotiate some unusual things into our contract, and one of those things was replacing the Formica counter tops that were already in the kitchen with granite.

What we didn’t anticipate was the large decision that this was going to entail which set off “The Great Granite Debate!” Of all the finishing touches throughout the home, the cabinets and counter tops are most likely the most permanent features in the home. They are the most expensive and time consuming to change out later, so whatever decision we went with we knew we had to love it for a long long looong time, as these counters are here for the long haul.

So off we went to Classic Stone in Plantsville CT. All of the research we did online suggested bringing a drawer front or something from the kitchen to help you pick a granite color that best compliments your cabinets. Since we do not technically own the cabinets yet this was not an option, so we had to wing it.

Another part of the conundrum the cabinets are not the color we’d always envisioned so the granite I had in my mind didn’t jive with the existing cabinets. Had we started from ground zero and built this house from the ground up I would have gone with a much darker cabinet. But the cabinets we have are a glazed maple (shown in the photos) that have a darker coloring within the grooves of the door than on the flat surface, and we want to compliment them the best we can.

We were however able to narrow it down to three options and bring samples to the house to compare to actual granite. Let me know your favorite (I apologize for the horrendous quality of these photographs, the granite was extremely reflective and I’m a bad photographer)

Granite #1 A Beigey Creamy Granite with small speckles of dark brown and red.

Granite #2 – Another Beigey Creamy Granite with BIGGER speckles and swirls of dark brown and a reddish color

Granite #3 – A Black Granite with lighter grey/dark brown specking

We’ve made our decision but would love to hear what you would choose and we’ll reveal our final selection once it’s been installed!

So that beautiful Colonial I posted a picture of the other day… we came to an agreement with the builder and hopefully it will be ours!

We had the offer in the other day, however I was afraid if I posted anything it would be bad luck. But now we have an accepted offer! It is still not final, we still have to get the mortgage commitment, have the house inspected and appraised (please appraise) and if all that goes well we should be moving in around mid June.

I will post interior photos soon as well, the builder is going quite a bit of work to the kitchen for us before we close. The kitchen as is has laminate counter tops that look like granite. Fake granite is so much worse than regular laminate, OWN YOUR LAMINATE-NESS stop pretending to be something your not! So we are having it replaced with the real granite. Also the appliances are getting switched out. My Fiance K likes to cook so he insisted the builder give us a gas stove since there is gas heat in the house (Duh, why would you have gas running through the house already and not use it to cook?)

Also, it comes with a side by side fridge. If you’ve ever owned a side by side fridge you know how evil they are. They look all nice and pretty and you think this is great I don’t have to bend down to go in the freezer once a day! But you know what, you have to bend down to half of your food in the fridge. And don’t even try to put a birthday cake, pork shoulder, or pizza box in there because it simply isn’t wide enough. So that is going too and being replaced with a bottom freezer model.

See that side by side fridge/freezer… bye bye! Also notice that all of the appliances in this kitchen are Stainless Steel, with the exception of the dishwasher? Why that was done is also a head scratcher. They must have gotten a huge deal on the lone black appliance or something, whatever the guy was thinking he’s changing that too. Sorry I’m a nit picker but it would keep me up at night thinking about the lone mismatched appliance.

He also has to pave the driveway and grade and seed the lawn. All before we close! It’s a lot of work and will be even more once we move in and start trying to make it ours; but I can’t wait to begin our married lives here!