Mud Room Countertop Time

  We have installed the cabinets in our new mud room so the next step = countertops....well, *one of the next steps anyway. We really love our quartz countertops in kitchen - no maintenance EVER = the right plan for us. Plus, some stones, like granite, have TOO many LARGER swirls and patterns that are a little bit too busy for me. Just a personal preference thing.
  So! Off to Stone Countertops Outlet for us! After exploring several different companies for stone counter tops when we did the kitchen, we already knew where our one stop would be. We visited their Edina location...

we love looking through the huge granite and quartz slabs

these were a few of our favorite natural stones - WAY to expensive and busy for what we need, but we really liked the cool textures - We especially like the option on the top left - it was really cool and kind of had this birch bark effect. SO cool!

Some of the many quartz stone options - this red and green options are nuts!
The green is REALLY bright. I couldn't imagine who would ever pick them! Yikes!

We narrowed down to a few, simple colors - low contrast - not too busy

and we decided on...

This lovely lighter gray quartz - called "Ajanta" (which I looked up: Ajanta Caves are these 30 some rock formation caves in India - Cool!) Those of you who remember the stone we chose for our kitchen, shouldn't be too surprised.
I guess we just know what we like!
This quartz is not too dissimilar to that of the kitchen, only this is lighter and a little lower contrast...
The lighter, whiter options were just TOO white - and to sit atop our new white mudroom cabinets, we would end up with a whole lot of white...

Can't wait to show you how the mudroom cabinets and countertop turn out! Stay tuned!

Going on a Tile Hunt!

   It's time for tile hunting again! And much like ALL of our hunting, the price tag = a pretty important purchase factor. We are looking for tile to go into our new office/studio (in progress) and the new mud room (also in progress) The two tiles WILL meet each other, so its important that the tile are a pretty significantly different size and color/texture.
  So it's off to Building Materials Outlet (BMO) in Eagan. "The Handyman's Candy Store" We were previously pretty successful when we scored our new kitchen/front entry way tile on the cheap last year (and love it so much, that we used more of the SAME tile in our master bathroom...)

What do you have to offer today BMO?

Got Cabinets? Finished, Unfinished - a really good deal on oak cabinets going on...

Got tubs and vanities? I think BMO will be our first stop when it's time to tackle the downstairs bathroom re-do.

Got decorative corbels? What about windows and carpet squares?

Got sinks? This stainless steel single basin tub *might just work out in our mud room when we're ready for it...

Oh yea. This is why we came. Got tile?

Oh la la. We have a winner! These tiles are a lovely color: It's hard to tell in the photo, but there are gold/rust colored flecks on a warm gray.  Not too slick, and no deep ridges to collect dirt - at $0.99/sq ft - sign us up!

  Thanks BMO! We found our tile for the mud room, but will need to look elsewhere for our office/studio tile. It will be easy to pick out a smaller size tile (like a 12"sq or so) to contrast with these big 18"sq tiles.

...To be continued next weekend!