Kitchen Floors - Hardwood versus Tile

I am having a hard time deciding whether to go hardwood or tile in the kitchen.  I love the hardwood we have chosen already (see post:  http://www.glowbabyfamily.blogspot.ca/2012/04/reno-hardwood.html) and I'm wondering if I shouldjust continue the hardwood into the kitchen. 

I've seen a lot of beautiful kitchens (like the one above) with hardwood as the flooring choice but I've heard that hardwood is not a great material for a kitchen.  Especially with young children around.

So I am asking, did you go hardwood or tile?  Why?  Why not? 

Any input is very welcome :)

Lindsay

Kitchen Appliances

Now that we are getting closer to our closing date on our new house (May 4) we are in full-on planning mode.  This past weekend we spent some time visiting various appliance stores to find appliances for our new kitchen.

There are so many choices of all appliances so I was a bit worried that we would have trouble narrowing down and picking just one.  It was actually surprisingly easy.  For the fridge, we really wanted a French door and double drawer combination.  I love the look of these fridges and find that they are a better use of space.  Also, there are not as many options in this look which made so much easier.  The fridge that spoke to me (yes, it did :)) was the Samsung model.  We saw this at http://www.appliancecanada.com/,

We aren't sure yet if we will be going with the 33 in wide or the 36 in option.  We would prefer the 36 inch of course (we need all the space we can get) but we aren't sure yet if it will fit well in the new kitchen.  But regardless, this fridge is the one!  The coolest feature is that the small drawer has a seperate temperature control for wine, meats, etc.  This fridge is also very energy efficient which is great.

Also at Appliance Canada we found our stove.  I had been debating between getting a cook top and wall ovens or whether we could find a range that I would like.  In this kitchen, I must have two stoves.  I have always wanted two stoves and having only one drives me crazy when I am cooking for large numbers!  We don't have a huge kitchen so we need to make the most of our space and finding a double oven range was the most logical solution.  Luckily, we found the GE Cafe double oven gas stove which is beautiful.

It has a five burner stove top and the lower over is big enough for a large turkey!  I also love the look of this stove and drool over the big beefy knobs.

Next step was choosing a dishwasher.  My parents have a Miele dishwasher with a seperate cutlery tray which makes sure that all your cutlery gets clean.  My husband loves this feature so we were looking for this option.  There aren't many options with this feature so choosing was pretty easy.  I wanted hidden buttons and so we chose the Kitchenaid Dishwasher.  Sleek and sexy.  This we found at www.tascoappliance.ca.

Our final appliance that we looked for was a built-in microwave.  I really wanted to find a microwave that also doubled as an oven.  There are not many of these to choose from that aren't ridiculously expensive.  We finally found a panasonic version at www.caplans.ca.  I love this microwave.  It does not look cheap and not only does is have microwave and oven capabilites it has inverter technology which means that is can also act as a warming oven!! 

Now all we have to choose is our range hood.  I have a feeling that this one may be the most  difficult to choose as I have no preferences regarding this item.  Any advice on picking a range hood would be great!

Reno - Hardwood

Now that our house is sold, it's time to focus on our new house and getting it ready for move in.  Currently, the house has carpet everywhere!  I am not a fan of carpet.  It stains easily (we have two small kids) and I much prefer the look of hardwood.  I have been dreaming of dark oak floors and I was worried that find the right hardwood would be a challenge.

A good friend of mine suggested I visit www.bramptonhardware.com in surprise, suprise Brampton.  Brett and I walked in and I immediatly saw the hardwood of my dreams.  Literally the first sample I saw was the one.  I fell in love.

Despite my instant love, I methodically went through the whole store to make sure I would not have buyers remorse.  There was nothing else that caught my eye so we purchased the Red Oak Chocolate Brown hardwood with wide planks.  I have a sample of it here and yes, I do look at it daily.  I am a little bit obsessed but clearly please with our purchase. 

This first big purchase for the new house is pretty exciting and I can't wait to see the finished product.  I have this vision of what our house will be and I can't wait to see it become a reality.

Our House is Sold!

As you know we just got back from vacation.  We took advantage of this vacation to sell our house!  Our timing couldn't have been more perfect.  We bought our new house in early March which gave us two weeks to get our current house in Open House shape.  We took on the challenge as we knew we knew it would be MUCH easier to list while we were away.

I am SO glad we did it the way we did.  From the day we listed our house on mls.ca to the day we sold, we have approximately 5 showings each day.  These showings tended to be in the afternoons and into the evenings.  I could only imagine how brutal it would have been to keep the girls out of the house during this time.  Not to mention the effort it would have taken to keep the house in pristine condition with my two tazmanian devils in residence.

So luckily, we sold our house on our offer date a week later!  I was a total wreck on offer night and am so glad the deal is done.  Now I can focus on our new house and getting it ready for us to move in.

Ahhhh...Vacation!

After many months of working super hard, my family and I were finally able to take a vacation. After much planning, we decided to head down to Florida and take the girls to Disney World and after that have a relaxing week on Sanibel Island.

We had a wonderful vacation. It was great to relax as a family and not have to worry about work or anything else. It took a few days to get in the swing of things, especially as we were at Disney World. Disney World in my opinion, is not really a vacation. I went into it with the attitude that this part of the vacation was for the girls and so apart from booking character dinners and the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, I left it up to the girls to tell us what we were going to be doing that day.



The girls had a wonderful time at Disney. Visiting with their favourite characters and just enjoying the awesomeness that is Disney. It blew my mind how busy Disney was. We went to Magic Kingdom, Epcot and the Animal Kingdom. Our favourite was definitely the Magic kingdom. Although I was beyond excited to see a real live Manatee!!!! I have always wanted to see one and was pretty stoked to finally be able to. The Finding Nemo ride was definitely worth the 40 minute wait just to see the manatee.













Brett and I definitely enjoyed Sanibel Island the most. I was a bit hesitant about holidaying in Florida as there are so many other places I want to go but as soon as I saw the island I was hooked! I totally get why people buy condos in Florida. If we could afford a condo on Sanibel, I would buy in a second!!

After a stress free week of only having to decided whether to swim in the pool or ocean, we headed home. It was sad to go and I can't wait now to plan our next holiday!!!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter weekend!

Here's the link to a cute little video of kids doing an Easter Egg taste test. Two of the littlest munchkins are my very own.

http://www.thestar.com/videozone/1157188

The girls were also in the Good Friday Paper with a cute write up about their reactions to the eggs. Here's the full article: http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1157529--the-dish-chocolate-easter-eggs#article