Floors!

We picked cypress for our floors. Kent said they are a little darker than he thought they would be but at the same time, they move light since they are finished and a bit shiny.

The first picture looks toward the kitchen; we've walled off about 24 inches of the original pass through. That way we get more storage in the kitchen plus we'll have a small area in the corner there (where the doors are stacked) for an eating nook.

The second picture is a close up of the floor. Originally we thought we'd go with a really light maple but once we saw it with the kitchen cabinets we realized the contrast was much too stark. We were able to reuse most of the upper cabinets which has helped a lot in keeping within the reconstruction budget.

Finally, the third picture shows how we've reconfigured the storage under the stairs. We'll have a small somewhat normal closet to the left of those boxes which you can't see. Those boxes slide out and are where we'll  put the litter boxes. We can stack things on top of the cube that houses the boxes (it's accessible from the closet side) and we've had doors made. Whenever we move on from this place, future owners can put the doors on those openings. We'll put fabric on a rod in front of them so the cats can get in easily, still have light to do their business and also help the rest of us not have to see it. Previously we'd had the litter boxes in the TV console, which worked well except our cats are litter flingers. We both got tired of cleaning up thrown litter in the living room all the time. Hopefully this will help a bit.