Progress

It was a bit of a saga but the countertops in the main part of the kitchen are installed, grouted, everything. The drama? Turns out that its hard to be precise and perfect when you are working with a substance called "mud". Used to having everything right down to the 1/64th of an inch, tiling was a little out of our comfort zone. Some of the grout lines were larger than they should be, some of the junctions weren't quite lined up, some of the tiles are slightly lower than some of the other tiles. However, the nice black grout went in and it fairly well smoothed everything out. And even August thinks that everything looks okay now.

And as of last night, even the sink is installed. hallelujah! The desk area (i.e. kitchen annex) is also *almost* done. Should be done by Friday. What in the world will we do with our 3.5 day weekend?? I'm sure will think of something. Shelving is high on my priority list.

The desk area...

And a random shot of me, to prove that I do occasionally do some work myself.

A Glimpse

Here's a little peek into what life's like around our house, pretty much any day of the week.



Our clever intent was to score the underside of this particular piece of hardiebacker and then just pop that sink cutout right out.. It didn't work out that way. We did of course get it out eventually, but it took lots of tearing, bending, etc etc etc.

We have granite!

It was a big weekend. We finally got the granite tiles for the countertop. The final decision was for "butterfly green" - green with some gray in it. This one wasn't exactly listed on the website, so we didn't even know it was an option until we got to the store. I love it though, its gonna look great with the slate floors. Its better than any of the other colors we considered... Unfortunately no pictures of it are really turning out, but you get the idea...

Guess what else came on Saturday - a giant arrangement of chocolate-dipped fruits... A fabulous birthday gift from August's mom & sister. What you can't tell in this picture is that I had already eaten the back side of the arrangement. mmm mmm...

Countertop coming up

I know this has to be like the fourth time I've posted about countertop options. But seriously folks, the time for decision making is NOW. We've changed our minds again, though only slightly. Still thinking granite tile, but not the $$$ Benissimo stuff i mentioned earlier. Why? I found a rather interesting Russian guy selling something similar out of a warehouse in Denver. A little sketchy, yes it is. However the savings will be approx. $500. Another nice thing is he carries larger tiles, like 18"x21". So we will have less seams. less seams = more like a slab.

Here's a shot of someone else's work:
And the colors we're considering... At this point it could go any way, leaning towards blue pearl as the cheapest possible option. The above counter is deep blue pearl. That's a lot different from regular blue pearl, according to the Russian.

--------------Uba tuba------------- Blue pearl---------------- Rusty sand-----

Countertop options

Well, face-frames are all stained and finished. By the end of it, we worked out a simple semi-fool-proof method. Also all but the peninsula are actually even assembled. And the peninsula will be first on the list once August gets back from training. Next on the list is to make some of the uppers.. I forsee this going quickly as these are smaller than the base cabinets and there's only four of them.. for now.. A few more later...

In the meantime, we've been investigating countertop options. Originally we had this idea to do concrete, and pour them ourselves. However, that was before we decide to also make the cabinets. Now I think we have enough "homemade" for one kitchen.

Thus, I got a couple of quotes on granite. We have a whooping 27 square feet of countertop (quite small) but 23 linear feet of exposed edges. In the granite world, exposed edges = $$$. The quotes came in at $2100 and $1900. That's $70 / sq ft. Also, granite is HEAVY. What if our cabinets buckle under the pressure? More likely, what if the floor buckles instead? I'm kidding... sort of...

So we considered granite tile. Excellent idea... The tiles are in the $10/sq ft range. We can install them ourselves. Besides, its not like we live in an upscale neighborhood or anything. However, we have SO MUCH exposed edging. And with tile you have a few options:

• do the edging in wood - eh... maybe a little dated... Kinda reminds me of the 80s. (See image on left.)
• ease and polish the sharp edges on the edge tiles - can have a fabricator do this for $10-12 /linear foot. Or get a grinder and DIY... (See image on right, ignore tape.
  

As an alternative option, we are heavily considering going with a compromise: Some companies sell tile with bullnose edges built right in. Its still tile, so we can install it ourselves. The edges will look much nicer. Of course there's a cost associated with that.. We are looking at ~$27/sq ft. Still a little high, but at least we don't have many of those square feet to cover. Here are some images so you can see what I'm talking about.