About 6 weeks ago Jody came in from work and said "after dinner let's go to Home Depot and you can pick out new counter tops." Well okie dokie then. I'm game, after all I had been sick of the cracked, stained grout in our tile counter tops for quiet some time.
So we went to Home Depot and I ended up picking one of the two choices that Jody thought I'd want (he brought samples home for me to match with our floor tile and the colors in our kitchen.) I went with Snow Drift, it's white with little flecks of whiter white, gray and black. I also agreed on the built in sink size that Jody had told the lady I'd want. She was quiet surprised that he knew me so well and that I didn't want to change any of the selections that he'd made to our plan.
I'm pretty easy too, but we won't go there. She was even surprised that I wanted to keep my existing faucet... I love that faucet.
The next week a guy came out to take measurements of the counter tops. After that we waited about 10 days until the installation. But before the installation was the tear out of the old counter top. That was a job for Jody. Not as easy as you may think, even for a guy that can do everything.
When Jody makes something he makes it REAL sturdy. He'd laid that new tile on the stove side right on top of the old tile. It didn't want to come off so easy so he just yanked the whole top off. Then on the other
sink side he had re-built that side using 2x6s or something like that, because I wanted the whole counter pulled out from the wall an extra 6 inches. The tile didn't want to budge. He tried every tool in his tool collection and ended up buying some kind of impact hammer to get the darned thing apart.
Well, being a woman and you know how we are about seeing an opportunity for change and improvement
did he really think he was going to get through this without me changing his plans, I suggested that it would be a good time to change the cabinets on the stove side. We'd changed the cabinets on the sink side about 6 or 7 years ago
when I wanted them scooched forward, did we really think that the original cabinets from 1978 would last much longer? No, they were already falling apart, so in the last 24 hours before the counter tops would be delivered to be set in place, he had to start shopping for cabinets, and I wanted special cabinets.... I wanted drawers! Huge drawers, for pots and pans. My friend Dawn has drawers, they were custom built and took weeks. We didn't have that kind of time.
He did it anyway! He got me my drawers! And he built a little nook for the cookie sheets, bar pans and cutting boards to slide into. There is a regular cabinet on the other side of the stove. Plenty of space for the big stew pots, pressure cooker and deep fryer to fit in. We've left them the natural oak color for now. I haven't decided if I'll paint them white to match the other side of the kitchen or go in the totally opposite direction and paint them black!!!!
We had to remove the old back splash and that meant we had to cover the damage that tile removal from sheet rock leaves. We went back and forth over Wainscoting or tile. Jody really didn't want the Wainscoting because he was worried about water damage. I was fine with either, we had put Wainscoting on the back of the stove after all.
It took me awhile to decide on this tumbled Travertine, but I really like it. They were 12x12 inch tiles, kind of a mosaic of 4x4, 2x2 and 4x2s on a mesh backing. We cut the 'tiles' in half, making 12x6 inch mesh backed strips. Before sticking them to the wall we grouted between the small tiles with white silicone kitchen and bath grout. We laid them flat on waxed paper and carefully squeezed the silicone between the little tiles. Let them dry for a good 24 hours
watching for bubbles and gaps and then applied the mastic to the wall and the tile backing. Ta da! Beautiful, and pretty much water resistant.
Let me back up a bit. After I had picked the tiles, I decided that the original red, Behr California Poppy to be exact, wasn't going to cut it with the color of the Travertine. So I let go of my long time dream to live at the Taco Cabana and repainted the whole kitchen Behr Warm Honey. It's the weirdest paint.... sometimes it looks really yellow, almost yeller. Then other times it looks like it's kind of green. In these pictures it looks like regular beige.
Check out that sink! Nice and DEEP, love the drains in the corners, leaves tons of space under the sink. I want to high 5 the woman who thought that up... genius! BUILT IN TOO!!! NO seams, aka goo line/gunk trapper!
That's a new faucet, Jody thought he'd ruin the other one trying to get it off the old sink, and he said why bother fighting the water spots and get a brushed stainless this time. So we did, I like it.
Back months ago when we first kicked this new counter top idea around, Jody thought that he could just do the whole installation himself, but NOoooo. All the places we contacted to buy from said that it took a special saw to do the cut-outs for the sink and stove. So Jody just stood back and pretty much watched
and learned the measuring and installation. Yeah, I wouldn't have had the nice built in sink, we'd have just used the old one and laid the counter top on top of it. Oh yeah, the guys had this fancy schmancy saw that they made the stove cut out with once they got here, but never tell Jody that he can't do something himself. He's built telescopes all the way down to grinding the lens and he's built 10 or 12 mandolins and a couple of banjos. So don't tell him it takes a special saw to cut this material, it's called Staron by the way.
The guys laying the counter top were so surprised when Jody told them that they needed to take the cut out pieces out of their truck and leave them here. Uh... we paid for that, we'll just hang onto it.
So he made a bunch of cutting boards! And he cut that stuff on his band saw!!! Same blade he uses to cut wood! I have all sizes and shapes now. They are great, if they get too scratched we'll just buff them with some steel wool and the scratches are gone. He made one to go under the coffeepot and it's on felt pads so it slides out nice and easy when I fill the pot with the spray nozzle on the sink.
Mmmmm, smooth! I can roll out pie crust without little lines in it now! It's so clean too!
He's already making measurements for his next project.
THE FIREPLACE! Yeah, he's already got the replacement in the garage.
Nah, that's not true, he listens.
