It has been MONTHS since I have given you guys new house updates on the blog and I apologize for that.  You can read my first Malone Maison post here from September and I promise to take some more pictures soon of the house and do a new update.  I do update more on my Instagram stories and have them saved under highlights.  One is NEW HOME and I just started a new one called HOME DECOR that I will save more of the design elements to.

I shared on Instagram some of the toughest decisions we have had so far while building our current house.  These are some items that have to be decided on fairly early on in the building process.  One item that I did forget here is PLUMBING FIXTURES.  That is definitely are really hard one to and one that has to be decided at the VERY beginning.  It is weirdly one of the first decisions you have to make because of the valves that have to be used in the slab and framing process.  We are using a mixture of polished nickle, gold and chrome!!  eeek! The rest of these were all tough decisions for me too!! The thing is that I liked them all…so having to choose just one for my house was sometimes super hard.  But we went with our gut and some great direction from our builder and decorator and made the decisions and stuck with it!

O N E

Shingles vs Tin Roof

We didn’t get stuck on this one for too long.  Matt felt strongly about shingles and I was totally fine with that.  I do like the looks of a tin roof and for the type of style that our house is, you see a lot of houses with tin roofs.  But they look great with shingles too and I was totally fine with that.  Matt mostly doesn’t like the noise of tin roofs and I don’t think he particularly loves the look of them.  So that is totally a personal preference!

T W O

White Windows vs Dark Windows

This is another big one that you are seeing a lot right now and especially in the style house we are building.  When I say dark windows, they don’t have to be black.  They make some really pretty dark brown windows that I love too.  This was definitely one that I went back and forth on a lot.  One big thing to look at with this is whether you plan to have shutters or not.   A lot of times you see this dark window look with no shutters.  We have shutters on our house, so I took that into consideration.  Another big thing to think about is that when you go with dark windows, it means you have dark windows on the interior of your house too!! Now this is something that I see all the time and think is soo beautiful.  But it can make a pretty big statement on the interiors, so you just have to make sure that is the aesthetic you are going for! I don’t think there is any wrong answer here, but we chose white in the end because white is never going out of style.  Its just one of those classic things and we decided to keep it safe!

T H R E E

Inset Cabinets vs Overlay

Okay, this was a BIGGIE for me.  Matt totally didn’t care either way here and didn’t have much of an opinion.  He is a penny saver, so he may lean more towards overlay if he had to pick because it is the less expensive choice.   But, my main decision came from the fact that inset cabinets take away a lot of your cabinet space!  We do not have a HUGE kitchen in this house and I felt like we were already lacking a bit in the cabinet department, so despite the fact that I love the look of inset cabinets so much, I decided to go with overlay.   If you look closely at the photos below, the inset cabinets have the space around each of the drawers.  So you are losing inches on each side of the drawer by having it this way.  Hope this makes sense, but even though it is a small amount of space, it can be the difference of plates fitting in or not! When Jillian Harris did her remodel of her house, I remember that being her biggest gripe of her kitchen.  She did inset and she wished someone had told her how much space she was missing out on.

  F O U R

Marble vs Quartz

This was definitely a big decision that I had to wrap my head around.  I went to instagram and asked for everyones opinion and let it be known that there are LOTS of opinions about this topic!  My basic struggle is that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE marble and to me, nothing really replaces it, but for the sake of my marriage and my husbands sanity; I chose to go with Quartz.  It is beautiful.  It is called Farrow Quartz and its from Superior Granite in Pensacola, but it is not marble.  My husband can not handle the etching and staining of countertops and doesn’t look at them as a beautiful life being lived, but rather the imperfection!! haha. I dont know how else to describe it, but those of you that have lived with marble and know….then you know what I mean.  From what I have heard from some, Quartz is not indestructible either, so we may end up learning that along the way too.  I really don’t know what the answer is here, but I went for the safer option and I will happily come back and share my opinion once we have lived with Quartz.  We are using marble in some of our bathrooms and other areas of our new house that are a little less likely to stain, so I am happy about that.  In our current home, we have a Rhino White Quartzite which is stronger than a marble but still porous.  We have had our fair share of staining with this as well!  But it is beautiful.  Best advice is to educate yourself on the different stones the best you can and then decide what is import to you.

F I V E

Antique Brass Hardware vs Flat Black

So I chose these two options because these are the two that I really narrowed it down to, but of course you could also include chrome or polished nickel hardware in there too!!   So in the beginning, I had told myself I was NOT going to go with brass.  It was too trendy, Matt didn’t really love it, and although I really like brass, I just didn’t want it everywhere.  Well, then….I came across a house that I just fell in LOVE with it in.  Like, I just started lusting over all the antique brass hardware all over this house that I saw.  And I started second guessing my decision obviously.  My feelings on chrome and polished nickel hardware is that they typically just disappear in the house.  To me, they just tend not to get noticed which can be really nice sometimes.  The antique brass and the black are a little bolder.  And I was pretty sure I wanted bolder.  On one of our weekend trips down to Seaside, we stayed in a townhouse that I loved and they had the black hardware and I loved the way it looked.  That is pretty much what helped me make up my mind.  Its so crazy because most people would NEVER even think about hardware.  You don’t even think of it or notice it unless you are looking for it yourself during a build or remodel!!!  So don’t kill yourself over thinking it ! haha.

So I hope this helps you guys!!! And I hope the takeaway from all this is still that you can’t go wrong with any of your decisions even though it can be so tough to make them!! All these choices are beautiful and we just have to decide deep down what it is we want.  And sometimes even with that, we just have to pick one because we really like BOTH!!

Coming soon, I will share Paint Colors, Lighting Choices, Mood Boards that I made throughout the house (but then have been tweaked with my decorator), and Tile Choices.  We are currently in the trim phase of the house, a base coat of paint is up, and soon we will be putting in tile in the showers and tub surrounds.  So fun things are ahead and I will bring you along for the ride!