Luxurious!

The digging out of the basement is underway and really cool! When we went down to the basement and got a sense of the ceiling height, I exclaimed "This feels luxurious!" Meanwhile, this is what we were looking at:

Mike's a lucky guy, since I think this feels luxurious! :)

This is how they get the dirt out of the house.

We didn't realize how many steps would be needed to get into the basement bedroom - that's high up!

Oh, hello! Thank you for working on a Saturday!

It was really cool to see this process in action. Definitely got us excited!

We've also met with a few cabinet people - that is our next big decision! I think we're looking at a "shaker style" cabinet, which is a nice, clean look. The inspiration kitchen on my previous post is shaker style. It's pretty cool to meet with cabinet people - they work within a CAD program and can produce images of your kitchen design pretty quickly. Even though I work with architects and know sort of how it works, it's still neat to see it applied to our own house! This is the most current design:

Love the large island with seating, and the window above the sink!

Even though we aren't chefs and don't really NEED it, I love the look of the hood.

The island is super cool - wine cooler on the left, microwave in the middle, garbage/recycling on the right.

The microwave's location has definitely been an issue, since we want the hood. There is a cool microwave that is actually a drawer, so it's really hidden. BUT they are super-expensive (like more than double a regular microwave), so this was the alternative we came up with. It's not ideal, but we don't microwave a ton so it'll be fine. It's all about compromise!

Tomorrow morning is a big day - we have a 9:00 hearing to fight the $500 fine that we got for "not registering our house as a vacant" - whatever that means. Wish us luck! It's coincidentally at the same time as the Ravens Super Bowl parade, so downtown will be INSANE! Hopefully there will be a Ray Lewis/Joe Flacco/T-Sizzle/Ray Rice/Boldin/Ngata/Torrey/etc sighting...I'll take seeing any of the Ravens! Love them all! We also have a meeting with the contractor to decide the final layout of the basement. Exciting!