Sneak Peek

Brent and I have really been busy bees lately.  The kitchen isn't quite done yet-- we still need to seal the grout of the back splash, caulk around the tile, get a better curtain over the window and put some shelves in and such. Here is what we have done so far.

The first thing we did was fix the wall where the 4" laminate back splash was ripped off.  Brent mudded it (is that a technical term??) and then started tiling. Here he is in that process:

look at the beautiful wallpaper border and paint color we uncovered!! ah!

Sadly, we didn't have a wet saw for the tile, so a lot of the cuts are kinda sketchy.  I bought some ginormous outlet covers online to help hide the weird tiles around the outlets and switches-- they helped a lot! We then had the wonderful job of grouting the tile.  We went to the 'Deep and bought all the lovely tools, but quickly realized this was going to be a really dirty job... It was so hard to get the sanded grout to stay in the grout lines, that we eventually had to just slap on the grout with our hands... When we were finally done, it looked like a sandcastle had exploded in our kitchen.  We also had severely over-exfoliated hands for about 2 weeks.  We were never really happy with the grout color, even after it dried, but it will do for now.  All along the way, my motto has been: if I still don't like it in a year, I will do it again. 

We then had to tackle the awful, outdated, way-too-bright flourescent light over the peninsula.  When Brent took the light down, this is what was underneath:

Awesome!.....

He tried to put a support bar in for the new light inbetween the joists in the ceiling.  Standard length is around 16"-24". Ours, of course, is 13.5", so Brent had to find another way to do it.  He put in a junction box, then patched the hole and mudded over it.

I was really impressed, as this was his first time doing anything like this. The light really turned out well!

Here is the (not so) lovely kitchen the day we bought the house:

And here is where we are with it today:

(ignore the ugly curtain)

We're still trying to figure out where to put all of our stuff and how we want the kitchen organized, but thanks to my wonderful mother, the dining room has gone from this:

To a place where we can actually sit and eat! (Thanks, Mom!)