My "red sink" moment

So as I've mentioned before, we are currently building a house. This is my first time building a house from scratch, and there have been many times so far that I have felt overwhelmed, or had trouble believing it was actually happening.

Well it is starting to sink in now!

Yesterday we had a meeting with the builders to go over some of the specs for the house- specifically the windows and doors package.

At first it was a breeze. We knew we wanted the Queen Anne grid, so all we had to do was choose the sizes for each room. The longest we spent discussing any of the windows was in figuring out the size of the rain glass transom for the master bath, and then a quick debate over whether or not to add an extra window in the basement. It's an upgrade, so it's an out-of-pocket expense, but having them order it from their wholesaler and install it for us ahead of time will be a heck of a lot cheaper than us buying it ourselves later on and then having to cut the whole, fix the drywall and the siding, and all that. So we went for it.

Donesies!

Then we moved on to the doors.

Sigh...

The doors were not as easy.

We wound up going with a simple two-panel door for all the interior doors, because they aren't too ornate and have more of an updated classic country vibe, which we liked. When in Rome, right?

Then we had to pick the exterior doors. Choosing the two garage doors was fairly easy. We maintained the same two-panel look, only in the steel, fire-resistant doors. Choosing the two sliders was easy too, as we just went with the Queen Anne grid in those as well.

Then we had to move on to the front door.

And here is where my brain started to hurt.

So. Many. Options.

So let me share a story before moving on. Back when I was probably 10 or so, my parents were remodeling our house. I remember overhearing the discussions about all the different color choices and design options and layouts (something I relate to now!) They needed to move forward with the kitchen design, but my mom was stuck. She couldn't envision it. She didn't know the look she wanted, the layout, any of it.

And then inspiration struck.

We were at the home improvement store, and she was perusing kitchen sinks when she saw it. The sink. It was an enameled cast iron sink. And it was red.

It looked much like this

Yes.

A red sink.

Not everyone's taste, but it spoke to her.

From there, the rest of the kitchen came together easy peasy. My mom found her inspiration in that sink.

Fast forward twenty years to yesterday, and there I am sitting in the builder's office, flipping through a gigantic book of door options.

Too fancy.

Too plain.

Too see through.

I flipped one more page, and I found it.

The door.

Same two-panel design as our other doors. The top panel was leaded glass, much like many of the other doors I had been seeing. It also had matching side light panels as well.

But rather than the fancy schmancy curlicue designs that were not my taste, this door had a cleaner geometric pattern. Squares and rectangles in different textures of privacy glass.

And intermittent in the pattern were ruby red pieces.

It was simple, yet beautiful.

It had a pop of color.

And it spoke to me.

That's my front door. I just knew it immediately.

I had my "red sink" moment.

Similar to this, only with ruby pieces...