La Fortuna, Main Floor - South East side

Picking up where we left off last week -- the other side of the house, main floor. 

The Master Suite is the whole left side of the house as you enter; the rest of the house is on the right, main floor, up and down.  The photo below is taken from the far side of the Great Room, looking back at the entry door (just barely visible in the center of the photo as a lighter stretch of wall in the shadow).

The kitchen and "breakfast room".  The hanging lamps are pretty in themselves -- Tiffany style glass. But they just don't go with the rest of the room -- too delicate, the colors don't quite match.

The Great Room is made up of the U-shaped kitchen (a generous area, with all the usual appliances, including a gas stove, much appreciated by the Dommus Family), set apart from the rest of the room by a high counter (visible).  Across from the kitchen, yet on the tiles is space for the round "mahogany" table that HomoDommus refinished a few years ago.  

The kitchen counter is...well, I'm ambivalent about it.  Because you can only get into the kitchen through the arch at the back (visible in the photo above, just left of the microwave oven) or at the end of the counter on the near side (not visible in this, or any of the photos I took) -- because of that, it's kind of closed off and separate from the rest of the Great Room.  The countertop is a dark grey heavily-marbled granite, that exudes "bigness" and "cool" (as in cold).  A popular countertop choice for the beginning of the century, and starting to feel dated now.

The first photo from Day 3 of the move, Sunday morning.  I was standing immediately in front of the kitchen counter.
Note the patio beyond the windows. That arbor is densely overgrown with wisteria -- not yet leafed out -- full of songbirds.

On the other hand, when you're standing in the kitchen, you have the full Great Room in front of you. You get the full view of the patio and Boise beyond while you're doing dishes.  And the bar!  I almost ran to Fred Meyer to buy some cheap bar stools, because I just wanted to sit there and chat all day. (Maybe, because for much of the time I was in the house, there was nowhere else to sit, but I don't think so.)  Something about the proportions of the room and the wide counter -- if I lived in the house, I'd be sitting there with my laptop most evenings.

HomoDommi sitting in front of the fire, Sunday morning.

I took the photo of the empty Great Room whilst standing in front of the fireplace.  As you can see, there's a fireplace.  It's gas - this is marvelous.  It heats up, and gives off a wonderful glow.  But you can turn it on (and off) with the flick of a switch; there's no wood to lug in from the woodpile, no ashes to clean up tomorrow.  There is also no crackling of popping water vapor, but I don't miss that enough to care.

The living room area of the Great Room, furnished
(as it was Sunday morning - furniture liable to change in future).

Okay, I'll just say it - I dislike the tile around the fireplace.  It's in the kitchen, too (where I also don't like it), and actually better blended at the fireplace than in the kitchen. The teal blue is too blue in person, or the yellow, too yellow, the black, too black.  The tile is very plain, just smooth color.  I don't know what effect the former owners were going for -- maybe they had furniture that color?

But changing out tile is nothing for HomoDommi.  He wants to decorate the house in the colors and textures of Islamic Moroccan (just guaranteed to gain him friends and admirers in conservative, Mormon Boise), and tile is one step towards that.