Tile

 Oh, tile. It causes me much heartburn.

The problem is that there are far too many tiles to choose from, and many more colors within each of those tile families. 

Take a look here for the Pewabic family of tile. 

And look here for the Motawi family of tile.

We, and by "we" I mean Doreen. But I was there in a supportive way, patient and confident that the result would be fantastic.

So we did end up picking the Motawi tile. And I was right, it looks great.

Primary Bath:

There was a minor hiccup with the spacing, but that was resolved over a weekend.

You can't see them that well in the two above photos, but we are using some of the FLW detail tiles that tie into the square motif of the house for accents. They look like this:

and here are some of the hex Motawi tiles grouted in:

and some more grouted tile:

We will be heading north in just over a week, so we will be able to see these in real life, real soon.

Overhead Kitchen Light Fixture

 Remember when I mentioned that we are trying to build a light fixture that Wright originally designed for the house?

It was for the dining room, but a Niedecken fixture was put up there instead. 

Here is the original design:

Here it is, rendered in 3D by TKWA:

Orthogonal view:

We are using some local artisans (more on them later) and will be making some subtle modifications. Mainly, those copper end-caps will be replaced by art-glass that mimics the sconces in the living room:

So, instead of this:

they will look like this:

and without the illumination:

I think they will be fantastic.

We were really wondering how to replace these bulbs, but we figured it out from the original drawing from the Milwaukee Museum of Art, the Elsner Collection:

looking at it in 3D:

So those little wooden keys come out, and you drop down the diffusers. Simple!