Busy weekend, more kitchen remodel progress, and a new kitchen table.

Saturday we went to the local farmer's market to find a rose bush I wanted (Marie van Houtte, with pretty two-toned yellow/pink fragrant blooms), but the Rose Lady was not there! Next we went to the Native Plant Sale, a twice-yearly event where local nurserymen sell only plants that are native to Florida. The idea is to promote growing that which belongs here, and promote the avoidance of invasive exotics. We bought several plants, including two native blueberry bushes, a Jaguar agave, hearts-a-bursting (I killed the last one; I made an exception to my plant-growing philosophy on this one, and I'm giving it a second chance), blue-eyed grass (one of my all-time favorite plants), and a dwarf variety of St. John's wort. If we're lucky, we may have fresh blueberries on our cereal next summer...mmmmm! The Rose Lady was at the plant sale, too, but sans roses, since they are not native, so I'll be looking for her at the Farmer's Market for a Marie van Houtte next week.
After all the shopping, we visited the Festival at Thornebrook, a local outdoor art show where I had been hoping to find the Furniture Guy (Scott) who last year sold me a beautiful hand-crafted wooden bench that we use as a coffee table. It's made of solid cherry inlaid with tupelo, a lovely blond wood with very interesting deep charcoal-gray grain patterns. The bench is so nice, I wanted to ask Scott whether he would custom-make a new kitchen table for us, also of cherry and tupelo. We found Scott's stall among the many vendors, and he remembered that I had bought the cherry/tupelo bench. As it turned out, Scott had recently been commissioned by a customer to make a 30x30" card table, but the customer had never picked up the finished table, which happened to be made of cherry and tupelo! We arranged to meet him again today and purchased our gorgeous new bistro-size kitchen table, perfect for the limited dining space in our eat-in kitchen.

Isn't it gorgeous? Turns out that Scott has known Andrew's family for years and used to fish out of their marina...very cool, and he is a very talented guy!

We weeded the garden,

made homemade bean and vegetable soup, and went to Home Depot to price a replacement window for the kitchen. (The current window is too big, and will need to be replaced with a shorter window to make room for the sink and cabinets below it).
We decided to omit over-the-range cabinets from our cabinet layout and forego the standard under-cabinet microwave/range hood combo. Instead, we will install a wall-mounted chimney-type range hood, to break up the monotonous "wall of cabinets."

I found a suitable range hood on Ebay, cheap, so now that's on order, too. I'm still waiting to hear whether the kitchen floor tile that I ordered and paid for has been shipped from Texas. I was told they have it in stock.

Here's a photo of the new floor tile (Daltile,Cotto Antico, Aranciato) and the natural-finish red oak cabinet finish we have selected. The cabinet doors will be beadboard, with plain slab drawers. My photo doesn't really do either justice.

Here is a better image of the tile, installed, with gray grout. I LOVE this look!

I'm currently in a bidding war with an Alabama gas range dealer who has the range that I want, but not at the price I want. The gap is narrowing, and I'm hoping he will let it go at something close to my price.
Finally, we haven't yet received the blue countertop tile samples from the tile supplier in California, so we can't make a decision there, either. Time's getting short. The tear-out is scheduled to begin on Oct. 20th. Somehow, Dixie doesn't seem worried about it.