La Cucina di Retro Bungalow

I suppose it's time for a look-see of some of our mostly finished work.

It seems like our task list for getting this place completely complete will never end.

I had fun designing Retro Bungalow's kitchen.
So, WELCOME!
Let me show you around a little.

First things first -

our sweet Madimo was here yesterday.

She left this beautiful scattering of toys on our kitchen floor.

No, seriously...it really is beautiful!

Our children's children are picking up where their parents left off

when they grew up, leaving childhood behind.

Like I said, it's a beautiful thing.

A few details:

I chose Benjamin Moore's "Cloud White" (OC-130) for our cabinet color.

Choosing the correct shade of white was particularly stressful for me,

but thanks to wonderful guidance from the Houzz.com community that

quickly responded to my inquiries, and advise from Jason at 

Weber paint and glass, I am thrilled with my choice.

I was aiming for clean and classic white, but with a warm hue.

Nailed it!

The perimeter counter tops are honed "Absolute Black" granite.

I was adamant that I did not want polished granite;
 it's much too shiny for my taste.

The island top is "Super White" quartzite, which was more than our budget plan,

but Sherrie, with Precision Granite, called me one morning and
told me she'd gotten a great deal on a beautiful slab. 

I grabbed it up, sight unseen.

I trust Sherrie like that.

The folks at Precision were great to work with.

Dean works for GE's healthcare division designing real-time surgical x-ray machines

and he gets screamin' deals on all GE products, so we went with their 

Monogram series appliances.

So far we love them.

Our knobs, handles, pulls and light fixtures are all oil rubbed bronze.

We're still missing two knobs for the leaded glass doors on the left.

Our cabinet crew was out here on half a dozen occasions working on install.

I asked Raymond one day if that was typical.

He said it definitely wasn't, but our kitchen and master bath were

particularly detailed.

Hmmm...okay, I guess.

I think what he was really saying was that I'm particularly detailed and fussy.

But Raymond, Devin and Matt are great guys and I feel like they're almost family now.

Don't know whether or not they appreciate that like I do though.

Our island is made of natural walnut and fashioned after the classic
craftsman look that goes so beautifully with our shaker style cabinets.
I ordered the craftsman style knobs and switch and outlet covers from
House of Antique Hardware.

We still have the under-cabinet and upper cabinet lighting to install.
That'll happen down the road in a few months when things slow down a bit.
The little black rooster that sits on the shelf of the range hood looks silly
and out of scale, but it's there for now to show that there's actually a shelf there.
I have a gorgeous copper platter saved to my Amazon wish list
that I look forward to displaying on that shelf when I break down and actually buy it.
And after living for a few days with the random things I put
in the glass-faced upper cabinets
(because I found two more unopened boxes of decor items in the garage),
I'm taking it all out as soon as I get a chance and driving it to DI.
I've made so many trips to DI lately it's laughable.
Or just down-right disgusting.
I've decided on the tile for our kitchen backsplash
and I'm SO EXCITED about it,
but we won't get to that detail for a little while.

One more little side note:
If you look back through the photos here,
you'll notice that there is a pleated shade in the kitchen window.
We just had Levolor's "Designer Color" pleated shades in "Cream"
 installed throughout the upstairs.
I do not like curtains at all, so those were easy to rule out.
And I know that plantation shutters have been quite the hot trend lately,
but they haven't really appealed to me.
They look nice from the outside, but in my opinion,
not so much from the inside.
That's just my personal preference, of course.
Two, or two and a half inch, blinds were out of the question because
I put so much thought into configuring our windows that I did not
want to detract from them with all those horizontal lines.
Plantation shutters, of course, would have presented the same problem.
If I had my druthers, we wouldn't have window coverings at all!

So, there you have it -
La Cucina di Retro Bungalow.
It'll continue to evolve over time, but I figured it was time to
show y'all around anyway.

Oh, and...here's where we were in all this craziness last year at his time!

Thanks for stoppin' by.
Have a happy, wonderful week, my friends.

Back to Blogging

Catching up seems impossible.

Taking a few steps back and looking forward seems doable.

That's some sage advice not just for projects like 

Our Retro Bungalow, but for life in general.

What with unloading the storage unit, unpacking what seems like 

endless stacks of boxes, trying to organize and find a place 

for everything (often that place is DI), focused care for Ally after her surgery,

Ryan and Abigail's wedding, Christmas, working on getting the finish details 

on the Bungalow completed (we still have a ways to go on that), 

throw in a difficult and painful family situation that has profoundly affected 

every single Mossi...

well, December was an extremely harried month and blogging 

was the very last thing on my mind.

I haven't even checked to see when the last post was published

or what it contains.

I'll just begin rattling off thoughts, download a few photos

and go from there.

Let's begin, shall we?

We spent several evenings back in early December unloading our 

on-site Mobile Mini unit. I don't know why they call it "Mobile Mini"

because the 8' wide x 9' high x 40' long freight train container 

that sat on our south property line for 18 months was anything but mini. 

And we had it packed to the gills Tetris style.

Finally...FINALLY, late one evening we carried the last item out,

swept its floor and latched its doors, never to enter again.

Which meant, of course, that we had stacks and stacks and stacks

of boxes, furniture and random this-n-thats stuffed here-n-there-n-everywhere

in the house and garage. 

UGH!

As of today, January 8th, we've made significant progress, 

but I'm still working on unpacking and putting away.

And my New Year's resolution after all this effort is that

for the rest of my life I don't buy anymore stuff.

I cannot believe the amount of stuff we own.

I just don't want anymore stuff.

I'm done with stuff.

Ok, point made.

Moving on now...

Dean called Mobile Mini to have them come and pick up

their not-so-mini storage container.

So they did.

And it was a happy thing to see the eyesore off.

And then there was the wedding.

It was rainy and cold and wonderful all at the same time.

And have I mentioned that we LOVE our new daughter, Abigail?

They became Mr & Mrs Mossi The Youngest

in the Salt Lake Temple

on the 13th of December or

12-13-14.

And if you're wondering why you didn't get an announcement,

that's because no one did.

From the get-go, they wanted to keep it as quiet, simple, and personal 

as possible, which means there was no reception or open house.

We did have a lovely family luncheon at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

On t'ward the end of the luncheon, Dean called a cab that whisked them away 

to the airport and they headed off on their honeymoon.

Perfect day.

Every Christmas I take a lot of pictures.

And every Christmas I end up with one favorite picture.

This years favorite, however, was not taken here at

Our Retro Bungalow.

It was taken at our favorite diner where the entire Mossi Family

meets every Christmas Eve morning for breakfast.

Along with that tradition started many, many moons ago,

we're known for wearing our Santa hats to breakfast.

The staff  at Moore's has come to expect us on Christmas Eve morning

and are always so good to us.

It's the familiarity and the fact that it's Christmas, I suppose.

It probably  also has something to do with Mr being an extremely generous tipper

because, after all, it's Christmas Eve morning and his mother worked a good 

part of her life waiting tables, so he has a soft spot for those hard working folks -

especially those working on Christmas.

So, here's my fav 2014 Christmas photo featuring Cowboy & Cupcake

sitting at our table at Moore's...

Just after I took this photo, Cowboy said the following, very funny thing...

"Poppo, you have the STRONGEST, MUSCLIEST fingers EVER!"

And we filled the diner with laughter and 

called his quip the Christmas Eve Quote of the Day.

There's not much here about the progress on the bungalow;

I apologize for that.

I'll get back to it in upcoming posts.

We sure appreciate all of you sticking with us, supporting 

and encouraging us along the way.

We wish you all a very happy, bless-ed new year.

Sheri