Holy Smoke! Sink hole complete.

Our good friend Tim came up from Denver yesterday to lend a hand. Not only did he fix the brakes on Matt's truck, he helped with the messiest job ever-- cutting in the sink hole. I won't go into all the details, but let me just say it was a huge pain in the ass to cut! On top of that, we all ingested about a pound of dust!! And unbeknownst to me, Tim is helping us on his birthday- what a great guy (thanks Tim! and Happy Birthday).

Finally, Finally, Finally countertops: $1013. Total so far: $4428

The day I have been waiting for finally arrived. We put the countertops in! Well, once again, I use the term "we" very loosly. My brother (also named Mike) came over and he and Matt cut the counters and hauled them upstairs (our kitchen is on the second level of our house). Our neighbor, David, came over, unsuspectingly, at the perfect time. It was definitely a three man job getting those mammoth pieces of rock up those stairs. But, alas, they made it! Then the magic happened-- we rubbed in the mineral oil and there they were, a thing of beauty (thanks Mike and David!). You may be thinking to yourselves-- hey these dummies didnt put in a sink. Well dont you worry, the white piece of paper there on the counter is the template for the place to cut out our new sink. Can't wait-- but I am not going to bother dusting for the thousandth time until that is finished! On a sour note, The @#$% Home Depot broke a chunk out of our custom ordered door and now we have to wait another 2 weeks for a new one. One last thing, check out the amount we have spent. We are seriously cutting things close! Can we stay in budget???

Dishwasher: $500. Total so far $3415

WOO HOO! we are getting close. We picked up our dishwasher ($500) from THD last week and were able to configure the appliance into the cabinet space. Our wonderful neighbor Jeff came over Friday afternoon and Saturday morning to convert the power to the disposal into an on/off plug and he was able to work electrical magic of some sort to make the other part of that plug into a constant "on" for the dishwasher. That was a big deal to us--as we could have never figured that one out on our own (thanks Jeff!). Friday night my sister and her husband, Mike, came over. Mike owns a company called Punchlist Construction www.punlistsummit.com and, needless to say, he is a handy guy to know. We had one oddball space that we needed a bottom cabinet in. Well, he was able to deconstruct-reconstruct and wham bam we had a new bottom cabinet. Coincidentally, drawers from an unused double cabinet were able to fit exactly into that space and we configured a cool pull out trash thing (that was Chase's idea for that space). Dont you love it when stuff works out? Thanks Mike!

Update: Floor is almost finished. Backer board: $30 Total so far: $2915

Matt replaced all the drywall on the backsplash area and we will wait and finish that as our last project. Meanwhile, our countertops are here (on the front porch). Each slab weighs 300 lbs. Wow. How do we even lift that? We have to have all the bottom counters in before we can set them, obviously. That means we are a few days off from that. Matt will have to fabricate the countertops for the sink, etc. (which I ordered on ebay) so that should be pretty intense. But the floors must come first. Matt set the remaining tiles last night and we will grout tonight. I also hung our "doorbell" on the side wall. Seriously this giant dinner bell or whatever it is-- was hanging outside our front door when we moved in as, I think, a notification system. This thing is so loud it could wake the neighborhood. I am feeling a little nostalgic and decided to hang it in the kitchen as seen in that first picture to the left of the fridge. (I replaced the pull with some old cutain ornamental things that I had just lying around). Thats all there is to report.

Adios 1970s.

It is official. All the orginal cabinets are gone. Before we tore out the kitchen sink, good old roll-around-joe gave his final performance as my dishwasher. He actually does a great job, but he will not be missed. Just for fun, I am including a picture of my best friend, Murphy (the absolute greatest tundra-dwelling chihuahua in the universe). When we tiled the kitchen he refused to walk across the floor (he was the only one that liked the linoleum). Matt is going to tile the rest of the floor this evening and I am on hiatus from cooking for a few days as we have no sink.

Update: Slate wall after grout

Here are some pictures with the grout in place. Matt did that last night while I watched the Academy Awards. Ignore all the trim stuff and decor. I am working on that.

"Brick" Wall = $125. Total so far: $2885

Well we got down to business on the wall this weekend. We bought some 12x12 slate tiles at THD for for $1.67/sq.ft and cut them down to brick size. We were originally going to cut the slate into smaller sizes, but the wet saw kicked the bucket half way through. We decided to go for it as-is, because on our tight schedule, we could not afford to wait another day. After the cuts were made, I washed the tiles and Matt started putting them on the wall. My sister came over with a bottle of wine and we had ourselves a little show watching Matt in action. This morning I wiped the wall down with a silly sounding product, something called "impregnator." I just take orders and am not sure of the product's purpose. I think of a few funny lines about the "impregnator"-- but think its not appropriate to say with the kid in the room. A note about the slate. THD had pre-cut tiles that were $6/sq. ft. We figured that we could cut our cost down to one third just by spending some time making the cuts ourselves. I think it turned out pretty well. In the end, we had to borrow a wet saw from our friend Tommy to finish the job. (thanks Tommy!). The slate still needs grout . . . but right now Matt and my brother, Mike, are at Janet's getting the rest of the cabinets. On a side note, Janet and I are becoming friends-- bonding over our mutual remodeling projects. She is going to come over for dinner and to visit her (my) cabinets when we are all finished.