Dang, what a whirl wind of a couple of days that just was!! Most of the past 48 hours has been spent in the kitchen. It started around 10am on Saturday, and finished about 10pm on Sunday. Ugh. Can anyone say "nap time"? Before all that though, Jacob had 6 football playing best friends over for a birthday party on Friday night. To say 7 boys (ages 11 & 12) in one place is chaotic, is putting it very very lightly. HA! They are so much more then chaotic. Jacob has a big divot in the top of his nose, one left a sweatshirt outside in one of the gardens, and one left with a very torn shirt. LOL, oh well, it was all in good fun.
But back to the kitchen.
Kitchen Before (on Saturday)
Yucky Yellow Formica Counters Close Up
I had a plan of attack in my head going into it. Little mini goals to get the bigger goals done. The big goal: the counter tops in and the new sink hooked up. So, on Saturday, I went to Lowes and bought all the materials. (3 pieces of counter top, miter corner kit, end caps, electrical supplies, and a new sink cost $494) We started small and installed the short 4 foot area of counter to the left of the stove. Then we had to move some light switches near the sink. That was done in plenty of time for an early bedtime Saturday night. LOL.
Sunday was the rougher of the two days, for sure. My Dad came over to help. It was a pain in the butt to get that big run of counters out. The sink side is just about 11 feet long and the side near the stove is about 7 feet. We pulled out the old sink, then had to saw the counter in half to get it out. Even with a gigantic crowbar, it wasn't budging. OH, and when we took the sink out, we got an estimated date of the last remodel. The date on the bottom of the sink was 9/30/69. My Dad says that would have been when the sink was made, so the remodel was probably in 1970.
Rusty was so helpful. Ron couldn't have installed the sink without him.
The sink was the worse part of the whole project, but worth it. The old porcelain lined cast iron was always stained (unless I had bleached it the day before), anytime the kids dropped something glass in the sink it broke (at least 3 glasses since and one bowl since moving in), and the bowls were really kinda small for how big the sink was. Getting the size of the whole just right was really the problem. You are supposed to leave a 1/4in lip for the sink to set on, but there is about 3 inches of wiggle room on the underside of the sink, and I thought that you could make the lip bigger, but I was wrong. It to HOURS to get it in.
We went from this...
... to this. (yes, I have a park bench in my living room)
There is still a lot to do. But the worst of it is finished. I am going to work on painting the base cabinets this week. And if I stay on track, I will be doing the tiled back splash by the weekend. Oh, and I should tell you... the colors really aren't working out as I had hoped. Since we went with a pre-made counter top instead of a custom one (and saved about $2000), I didn't get the chocolate brown color I wanted. I had to go with this more gray/brown color. So, I probably won't do the seafoam blue tiles I was thinking I would use. Now, the plan is for simpler bisque tiles in a running bond pattern, and maybe an accent tile in a blue-ish color.
The Kitchen Now (or Sunday Night)
With all the weekend happens, I didn't get to finish updating my website with new jewelry. I am going to work on that more today. Be sure to check things out!!
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3 comments:
Great Job Kerry! Love the new look! The kitten is so adorable! Helping out in his own little way! :)
What? Your old sink was actually older that ME! :-) You are coming along great...what progress! That picture of Rusty and Ron under the sink is classic. I hope Lauren's feeling beter.
Cindy Cindy Cindy... it isn't all that hard to be older then you, LOL! It isn't like you were around before dirt!!
Lauren is still sleeping. But no strep throat, thankfully.
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