If we see yet another granite countertop and cherry cabinet combo in a new-construction housing unit (cue picture of boring granite counter), we’re going to scream. What do all these new home buyers talk about at parties? “I bet my granite’s thicker than yours”?
So we’re heartened to hear about a developer who is finally getting away from the cookie-cutter mentality and enlisting the services of a designer to show us all a bit of style.
At the upcoming West Loop loft project Tailor at Jackson, developer The Tenley Group has roped in Chicago design company jamesthomas which is offering three distinct packages of standard finishes – read standard – not the posh upgrades on display at so many model units these days that seduce buyers into parting with megabucks to achieve the same cool look.
It’s an approach that is apparently common on loft projects in New York and Washington D.C. At Tailor at Jackson the designer packages will be dubbed ‘wool’, ‘cashmere’ and ‘silk’. It’s a play on the nifty little sculptures of two wizened tailors that adorn the front of the building, as we showed you last week.
The silk package offers a sleek, modern look, with counters made from silestone (a durable quartz that looks like soapstone and doesn’t absorb stains easily), maple floors with a natural stain and mosaic bathroom tiles.
The cashmere package is for those whose tastes lie somewhere between classical and modern. It offers limestone kitchen counters and a mosaic backsplash. We hope to have some cool pictures to show you shortly. The wool package gives die-hards their granite’n’cherry combo deal, but at least the developer isn’t offering any of that awful green ‘uba tuba’ granite, (we think ‘granny granite’ would be a better name for it).
Now your new pad will just look like every third person’s place.