Follow up from yesterday

At about three o'clock Tuesday afternoon I got a phone call from the same client who was panicking on Monday. I saw who was calling on the caller ID and braced myself for another round of "let's talk this woman off the ledge." Instead, when I answered the phone I was greeted by a series of rapid fire thank yous and choked back sobs. I'm not kidding. Apparently, the electrician had just left after having hung the final pendant light and she was at long last alone with her renovated kitchen.

"Everything's even more beautiful than you said it would be Paul, I'm sorry for being so much trouble." She went on, but that was the gist of it.

Boy do I love being right.

So here's the tile that was at the root of yesterday's melt down:

It's an inexpensive, $25 a square foot glass tile. The only thing unique about it is the shape of the individual tiles. From my perspective, it's still pretty tame. But by the standards of the development where this particular project took place, it is downright avant garde.

The client had her heart set on white cabinetry all along, and I suggested a sienna-toned white paint on a maple cabinet. Bright white is hard to pull off without looking sterile, so I always go with a tinted white to tone it down a bit.

She picked this granite. It's an easy to find Brazilian stone and it too is pretty basic. That wall tile was the gentle prod that room needed to make it something other than what all the neighbors do. A gentle prod, that's all it was. Due in a large part to that tile, her finished kitchen is a warm and inviting place. The textures and patterns are interesting but still subtle. I say anyhow and now that she's happy and will pay her final invoice, I'm happy too.