Kitchen Demo Day 43

 I have a functional kitchen!! I have cold and hot water, and even filtered water. I have a dishwasher that works!! Oh, I haven't had a dishwasher since I moved in in August. I have drawer pulls and knobs. And as you can see by the pictures I'm very happy to have counters to pile crap on.

I have a fridge, but.... There are a couple of scratches on the top of the front door. And unfortunately no one realized there were three bags of frozen food in the freezer, so those got hauled off with the old fridge. I'm pretty devastated by that. I use my freezer like nobody's business, and lost a lot of food. It's actually pretty amazing how much was left in there since I've been eating lunch out of my freezer for 6 weeks. I gave up on trying to do dinner because the washing up was too much. I'll get over the heartbreak, and can hopefully clear out the curse of the fridge. :-D I have a beautiful, lovely, open kitchen that I can't wait to be in. I ordered the backsplash today. Unfortunately it won't be ready until the end of next week, but at least I have a functional kitchen. I can start settling in!! And despite a few annoyances, that's all they are. I have a kitchen again!! And a pretty one at that!!

Kitchen Demo Day 42

I have a working stove, microwave, garbage disposal and cold water!! So exciting! The disposal is super quiet, and I can't tell you how lovely it is to have a sink.

This kitchen feels like home. And bonus, I can't touch the ceiling anymore!!

Kitchen Demo Day 41

41 days of not having a kitchen. UGH!! I should have the appliances and plumbing hooked up on Thursday. Yay!!

So I love the granite. It's definitely more blue green than I was expecting, and doesn't go with the olive green I just painted in the dining room. So I need to pick a new color. I am pretty well decided on the celery green subway tile and a couple of rows of the mosaic.

Here are the paint swatches I'm considering.

Kitchen Demo Day 38

Time to take a break from the demo part and discuss kitchen backsplashes. So last week when I went to The Tile Guy shop, I looked at travertine and faux travertine tiles for the backsplash. They are pretty, but very neutral. To jazz it up, I could add a mosaic border...along the lines of this.

One of the challenges is I have a spectacular floor (or I will once I get a few things fixed...I don't want to talk about the problems I've encountered yet) and the granite will also be a little busy. So the travertine is calm and will allow everything else to be the star. The problem for me is that it's beige. It does come in warm tones, and I do think it looks lovely with the granite, but it's kind of boring.

I've spent the last week coming to terms with the fact that I might just have a blah backsplash. Last night I looked at glass mosaics to use as a border and found these two. I like the one with the purple in it.

So I went to the tile shop today, and John, who helped me before was there. He's amazing. Knowledgable and has a good eye for things. Anyway, I also had my paint swatch. I'm do the olive in the dining area. He pulled out a beveled subway tile in celery, which is calm but not blah. It doesn't have the high gloss as the other colored ceramic/porcelain tiles I'd looked at and looks great with my granite.

As we're talking he said I could still do a mosaic border in there, but it might not need it. But then an idea hits him and he shows me this stunning ceramic mosaic. It's got a bit more blue in it, but wow!! I really like it. It comes in this cool basketweave pattern that would be pretty darn awesome because that reads arts and crafts so much.

I also asked him to show me this hexagon tile in yellow. It's blended so there's a bunch of different yellows. I saw it last week and it stuck in my head. It could work.

Anyway--I've gone from blah to OH! I'm going to wait to make a final decision until granite is in and I can see the samples with the full size granite.

Kitchen Demo Day 34

This has been a rough couple of weeks. I have had a hard time getting estimates from tile installers. I wound up with only two estimates and wildly different approaches. I really would have liked a third, but I just don't have the time, or the patience to track down another installer. I also really don't like that it's harder to find reviews or info on installers. So I am going on my instinct. My head keeps arguing with me. I'm so anxious, but I try and keep reassuring myself it will all work out fine in the end!

So I spent most of last week with a horrendous cold trying to get things nailed down. My hope was to get the tile installed this week so appliances could be delivered, and then the countertops would come next week. After many phone calls, I did get a tile guy scheduled for this week. He put down an underlayment yesterday. This is to stabilize the floor and keep the cracks from cracking my tile.

Today he started to lay the tile. Unfortunately a couple of hours after starting, I got a call. They were short on tile. ACK!! So I called the tile store, and they were going to check. Fortunately it was in stock and could be delivered later that afternoon to the store. Unfortunately I have a job where I can't really slip away in the afternoon since it's my busy time. However, I have a dear friend who was willing pick up the tile for me. Yay!! So the tile guys will be able to finish laying the tile tomorrow and do the grout. Whew.

This sort of stuff just stresses me out. I hate having to deal with all of it, and I start worrying and obsessing. I know it will be fine. I really do, but I can't help it. Anyway, I got home from work and my heart stopped. The tile is beyond words beautiful. It is exactly what I wanted, and visual reminder of why I really wanted the tile and didn't want to have to find a different flooring. I can hardly wait to see it tomorrow after it's finished.

Now, if I could just get the countertop folks to wrap up the details!!

Kitchen Demo Day 29

Trim is up. It finishes the cabinets off nicely, and I like the transition from the stain to paint. Now back to waiting.

Kitchen Demo Day 28

I have cabinets in my kitchen!! Beautiful cabinets. Wow!! So happy. I have a bank of drawers and a fancy pull out trash drawer.

Granite folks are coming to do the template on Friday and I need to pick out my slab. Hopefully I will hear from the tile folks and get that all confirmed. It's starting to come together.

Zentangle

Yesterday at the monthly meeting of the Heart of Texas Tolers, we played with Zentangle. Kind of organized doodling. It was fun!!

Nice to have a break from kitchen things!

Pottery Painting

Back in the middle of February, I went to a paint your own pottery place with a couple of friends. It was a fun night. I had never done the pottery thing before. I finally picked up my piece. It's a trivet.

Kitchen Demo Day 22

It sucks not having a kitchen sink, and going to the dining room for the fridge, and either the craft room or bedroom to make something. I'm hopefully on the home stretch though. Cabinets should be ready next week, and I've been enjoying my new lighting in the meantime.

I had a little panic over the weekend when I got the Venetian Oak stain sample for my cabinets and it was not what I remembered. Turned out they didn't double check it against the sample and so they sent a new one. Whew, it was what I was expecting. So now I can finally pick out my backsplash.

The granite in the photo is not Peacock Green, but it's similar. The Peacock Green is basically the same color but it has more of a gold/tan vein through it which picks up nicely on gold in the floor and the warm tone in the cabinets. It's going to look so pretty!!

I had a tile installer come out today and it sounds like I will still get my California Gold slate, assuming the estimate is in my price range!