kitchen reno: week 8

my oh my oh my is our kitchen starting to take shape! Today's update is uber-exciting.....are you ready?

here goes...

Last week, on Wednesday to be exact, our floors went from this-

nasty, yucky, dirty concrete.

concrete that little feet liked to run around on.

see?

Cute feet, yes.

Clean feet, not really.

TO THIS-

Pretty, shiny, woodeny floors.

And yes, we put the 2 year old to work immediately.

She's the blur you see above.

The wooden gawgeousness extends to the hallway...

(and that's O looking for something to eat in the fridge that was stashed out of the way in the man cave. We had appliances all OVAH the house while the men were putting the floors down)

and into the laundry room as well.

We have a laundry room now.

Have I mentioned that?

Can't remember...

The washer and dryer spent the day in the dining room.

Glad we're done with the moving of the appliances now.

sheesh.

If you've had hardwoods installed in your home, you're probably familiar with the 'get-down-on-your-hands-and-knees-and-scrub-that-glue-off' that comes with the pretty shinyness. Unless, of course, you have people that do it for you. In which case, you're uppity.

We're not uppity so we did the scrubbing ourselves.

Every square inch.

Forgive the awkward sitting position.

Again,

not uppity.

We scrubbed until the floors shone like the top of the Chrysler Building.

Name that musical.

Ain't they pretty?

The next day,

we received a call from the countertop man.

Oh how we'd been waiting for a call from the countertop man.

Not only because he brings the countertops,

but because he also brings the

sink.

The blessed kitchen sink that we'd been without ever since

 kitchen reno: week 5.

August 7, to be exact, was the day the kitchen sink and the dishwasher were ripped out, so it's been a good solid 3 weeks of washing sippies and dishes in the bathtub, and drinking whatever I could find in the fridge because I was too lazy to walk all the way to the bathroom for a glass of water.

But not anymore...

The lovely countertop man arrived bright and early Tuesday morning and boy howdy is it nice to have water in the kitchen again. I also may or may not have rubbed my face against the countertops.

I mean, we waited so long.

And they're so purty.

Again, may or may not have.

We went with a solid surface top which will never scratch or break and is pretty much all around indestructible. The price was amazing and included installation AND a sink (which we got to pick out). Here's a close-up so you can see the prettiness.

Black with some subtle silvery-grey speckles. The pic really makes them stand out a bit more.

They are truly subtle.

Because isn't that how you'd want your speckles?

Subtle.

I haven't 'styled' the kitchen yet, but that will come.

Soon.

The first thing I actually put on the countertop were the paper towels.

Priorities you know.

Can't wait to play with accessories in there and get it lookin' all pretty.

So, to recap-

in the past week, the floors AND the countertops were installed. While those are two HUGE things we were able to check off of the list, and while it does bring functionality back to the room, there's still quite a bit to do.

For example,

trim for the doors and windows has been purchased (thanks Dad!) but still needs to be painted and installed. Also need to paint the doors (man cave, pantry, hallway, and utility closet) and replace the door knobs. Still have to purchase base boards (or base trim? you know, the stuff at the bottom of the walls...) and quarter round, paint that, and install it. Also have to finish swapping all of the plugs and switches from brown ones to white ones and put new white face plates on all. Already purchased those.

And oh yeah,

we're gonna have to build a banquette.

Since that was my original vision.

Can't give up on my dream ya know.

(Examples of what I've cooked up in my head found HERE)

whew.

So much accomplished though.

We were actually able to cook in our kitchen tonight,

and of course, when I say 'we', I mean 'my hubs'.

I don't really cook-

it's in my bio.

I did, however, have to pack and unpack a plethora (that's the word for the week, by the way) of cookbooks during this process and was inspired to find something I might actually want to make.

We'll see.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Now, just for fun, let's have a quick 'before' and 'after' at this point in the game:

BEFORE

AFTER

Or, really close to being AFTER

la la love it.

Happy Thursday friends!