We bring this to you on a time-delayed basis...

August 2

Lots and lots has been happening, but I don't want to post any more pictures until the big reveal.

It's getting so close, and yet not one of the things we're doing is actually DONE. That's frustrating. But we get closer nearly every day. Here's where things stand as of this date:

The main cabinets are all painted - but not all put back together. One hinge pin broke while trying to remove the doors, and another bent to the point of being unusable. Of course you can't get exact matches to this kind of hinge in any big box store...  I found some online that I thought were very, very close, but naturally they came in pairs and we only needed one each of two different sizes. So I found some on another site and ordered those. They're very close, and, since they'll be up high, I don't think anyone will notice. I'll paint them to match the others. Why aren't those done, you ask? Well, they're just about 1/16th of an inch bigger than the originals, and, since those are set into the wood, not merely surface mounted, Joe needs to chisel the opening just that much bigger. And we're converting the fake drawer fronts under the sink to open up, so we can keep a scrubbie and a sponge and such in there. Haven't got that hardware in yet. We need to plane or sand down the door to the spice cabinet. It sticks a bit, especially with the new paint. And when that's done, I have to paint it.  And of course there are touchups to do. In places, the famous blue tape pulled off some of the new paint when I removed it; in others, the hinge pin scraped paint off the doors as we pushed (or hammered!) them into place. And THEN the cabinets will be done.  I did get magnetic catches on the doors that need them. I imagine I'll need to add more as the weather cools towards autumn and the wood dries and shrinks, but that's one of the easy things to do. Oh, and I have one more piece of contact paper to put down. It's all cut - I just have to get on the ladder and DO IT. It was certainly...in-ter-es-ting...to put the paper under the sink. I had no idea what was under the old paper. The paper itself was on something else made of I know not what - maybe a scrap of linoleum? - and laid over the cabinet floor. The floor is made of several pieces of wood at different levels, and the plumbers cut all kinds of interesting holes when bringing the plumbing up to code. I have no idea how long it'll last, but it fits and certainly looks better than what we've had all these years. After that, the last pieces were easy! I'm glad I figured out how to handle the stuff on simple shelves. And I have extra in case the piece under the sink doesn't last.

The tile is all up - except for the windowsill. The sill over the sink had to come out when the counter went in - it was just a bit too low to fit over the soapstone. We trimmed the laminate to go around the sill, but you don't trim soapstone! We plan to do some kind of tiling there - it'll resist water better than anything else, besides looking good - but haven't quite figured out what yet. Oh, and I forgot. We want to tile down to the floor behind the stove and didn't get that done, either. That'll require pulling the stove all the way out and disconnecting it for a few days, and, since it's not really visible, that can wait a while. But we don't have the grout done, nor are the outlets quite redone. You have to take off the outlet covers - that's pretty evident - and then loosen the screws actually holding the plug in place and pull the plug out of the wall far enough so the tile can slide behind those metal loops you see in this picture. That allows your outlets to stay flush with the tile, as opposed to being inset. Of course the electricians mostly used screws that were too short, even though we told them we were tiling, so we have to replace them. And, I must admit, we goofed some when cutting the tiles around the outlets. We cut pieces so they went on the outside of those loops, instead of under them. For the most part, it didn't turn out to be a big deal, as we had lots of little scraps left we could just glue on to provide a solid surface at the right height. No one will know unless they pull off the outlet cover. If they do, they're looking too closely! Why did I say "for the most part"? Because in some places, the electrician didn't even have those loops resting on drywall on both the top and bottom. I'm not sure how well they'd have stayed anchored in the long run. Neighbor Dan - of whom more shall be spoken later - heard about this and gave us some spacers to use between the receptacle and the place where the screw fastens. I know that's not a good explanation - sorry. But they did make it possible to finish the job.

The actual tiling was a real learning experience for me. I'd never done it. When the first backsplash went up, Joe and Dad did it. Kendra was just weeks old, and my job was caring for her, not working on the kitchen. So two weeks ago, Joe and I did the two spots by the original cabinets. Good choice? You tell me. Certainly they're smaller spaces, and thus faster. But they're also not at all level or even, and that makes them harder. We managed to get most of it done in an afternoon. I then tackled the walls behind the new countertops the next two days and am proud to say I did nearly all of it myself. Not too bad for a rank amateur. Not perfect, but not bad. I think I may be the only one who sees the flaws. We love the design we created. We knew we wanted mini subway tile (2x4 instead of 3x6), but changed our minds about color. We'd thought almond, but went with white. White really does go with everything, and it's 1/3 the price of almond! We had planned to put in a row of  2x2 mini black squares as an accent, but 1) I had an awful time finding them online and our local store didn't have enough and 2) it was EIGHT BUCKS for 4 small tiles! With well over 200 inches to tile, you can see how that adds up. We'd planned a row of liner tile at the top and bottom of the backsplash. Since those go for 68 cents for a six inch liner, we opted to put a double row part way up the wall instead and very much like the look - at a fraction of the price. I had to order from three stores to get enough of them!

I'd asked if anyone had a tile cutter, and Neighbor Dan had a tile saw - the electrical kind that uses water to cool the blade. Frankly, it intimidated me, and Joe had had a tough time using one back in high school, so we got a manual tile snapper. That worked well for the most of the job, in no small part because we could have it in the kitchen. We didn't need to run outside every time we needed a tile cut. Those snappers work well for many things, but they can't do an L-shaped cut (to go around an outlet, for example), nor do they cut really narrow pieces off well. The tile tends to shatter. Turns out there's a rod saw you can use, that's essentially a very narrow file on a hacksaw, and it was fine for a few very small cuts (like this one around the counter), but we needed 40 pieces of tile trimmed by 1/4", plus others cut for the outlets, and that would have been grueling by hand. So off we went to the tile saw. Turns out it's not particularly hard to use, and Dan had put a lovely new sharp blade on it, so it worked much, much better than the one Joe used all those years ago. We had all our tiles marked and ready to go and just ran them off without trouble. For some reason, the subway tile (which came in mosaic sheets) was a different material than the bullnose tile. Never mind that they're the same maker - the subway tile is exponentially harder. I honestly don't know if we'd have been able to complete the job with the hand saw. Actually, we had three different shapes of the white: the mosaic subway, the bullnose (has a rounded edge for where you see the edge of the tile - you can sort of see it in this picture) and some 4x4 squares. Why 4x4 squares? Well, it was something I tried that didn't quite work out as planned, but ended up being fine. When we realized we needed 40 tiles cut to 1.5" tall, we knew the tile snapper wouldn't work. You just can't cut a half inch piece off. So I'd seen 4x4 tiles and thought we could just cut a 1.5" piece off that - or maybe even 2 of them. Shoulda worked... But while the box was labeled 4x4, the actual size was 4.25x4.25. So as I'm putting these tiles up for the last row, I realize the tiles aren't lining up right - and figure out they're not the same size! Fortunately, I hadn't gotten all that far, and was able to pull them off the wall without issue. So they were the right height, but too long - and that's the 1/4" we trimmed off. And this tile was of the softer variety, too. Go figure.

Next up? The walls. Not there's nearly as much wall space as there was! We had a friend who's great with color come over. She'd come over when we were starting, and suggested we wait a while, as most people just sort of start to realize what color they want as a project moves along. She was correct. The colors we wanted to use sort of grew out of the project, as well as things we already had. So our friend came back last week, color samples in hand, and helped us narrow down the shades to 3 possibilities. We were pretty sure about the color for the walls below the chair rail, but were debating between 2 for above it. I went and got three samples, and, once again we agreed! Funny story: I'd gotten some paint palette suggestions at a hardware store. By that I mean they didn't just show 3 shades of one color family, but showed how different colors work together. One jumped out at me right away. I laid them all out for Joe, not telling him which one I liked. He later told me he was nervous he'd get it "wrong." But, you guessed it, he liked the same one I did! We didn't end up using quite those shades, but pretty darn close.

But of course you don't just get to start painting - you have to prep first. So I sanded the walls to take the shine down or the last of the glue off (depending on if that piece of wall was green or yellow), rinsed them off and primed with Kilz. Then up went two coats. Luckily for me, the weather cooperated - 70s and dry - so the paint went on really well. I found myself seriously annoyed, though, when I went to pull off the special 3M tape meant to be used on newly painted surfaces (remember how new it is on the cabinets) and it pulled the new stuff off the wall in several places. I ended up using a utility knife to score the join and that took care of most of the issue. No trouble on the cabinets - just the walls. I thought maybe I hadn't properly prepped the walls, but it happened where we had brand new drywall, too, and that was certainly done right, as all it needed was priming! So more touch ups to do.

My hope is to finish sanding and priming the trim (I did nearly all of it but the windows as I went) and paint it Monday and Tuesday. If we can get that and the tile done and all the doors up before Kendra comes home, we'll be good. I really want her to walk in and say "Holy Cats!"  We still need to get a few things - a rug, I'll make some curtains - and we need to hang our pictures and stuff back on the walls, but those are smaller things.

 August 7 Update

We've come a long way, baby.

I did get all the trim painted, and only have some touchups to go. It looks AMAZING - so bright and cheerful and fresh. Taking down the blue tape sure helped bring it all together. Joe got the new hinges on (they match so well I don't even have to paint!) and the doors up, planed the spice cabinet door and converted the drawer fronts. I have to put one more coat on the spice cabinet door hinges and then ALL the doors will be done. Sure was harder and longer to paint all the trim than to do the walls. The baseboard, door frames, and chair rail were easy enough, if much slower than the walls since you can't use a roller for a lot of it, but the windows were a pain. So much detail work and awkward angles, especially when you wear bifocals! I had to tilt my head at strange angles to be able to see the small areas in which I was working. And the window over the sink was particularly hard. For one thing, I couldn't put my weight on the counter, so I had to lean over from a ladder. For another, the globe on the light fixture doesn't come off (how stupid is that?). That meant I had to lean around it to get to the center! I still have to scrape bits of paint off the windows, but that's easy and fairly fast. I hadn't realized how many nail holes and small divots we have in the baseboard trim until I painted them and the holes didn't fill in! I plan to go back and fill them and put a touchup coat on, just to make it look nice. Oh, and a couple pieces of trim the sheet rock guy took down need to go up. They're ready, too.

Joe and I will tackle grouting this weekend, and then we'll CLEAN. The floor is a mess, although the rest is good. We found some fun fabric online for valances. I'd found some I liked, although I can't say I was wild about any of it, and Joe was OK at best with some of them. So, again, I did more looking. I thought about what fabrics might work in a bungalow kitchen and thought of flour sack fabrics from the Depression. Of course the house predates that, but not by much, and I'm sure those flour sacks got used for something in the house at some point in time. There are some great and fun prints out there. We just had to rule out the florals and the obviously-meant-for-small-children prints and we were golden. We've gotten some of the samples and they're great!

We're so close I can just about taste it...