Oh, Yeah!

So, I know we didn't give you an update last week, but we'll make it worth your while. This week you get the kitchen money shots! But before I get ahead of myself...

The glass tile we were waiting for a few weeks back came in two Thursdays ago. That meant we could get the tile set that weekend. On Saturday we rented the tile saw and spent the day getting the tile set. It was pretty straight forward with the exception of a spot where the tile had to wrap around the outside corner at the end of the wall on the peninsula. The glass tile was a little more tricky working with. It is see-through so you have to take additional measures to make sure you don't get any air bubbles behind the tile that will be visible later.

We were able to get all the tile set on Saturday and we had a nice Easter on Saturday with family.

I took the day off work on Tuesday to do the grout work and spend some extra time with the family. The grout work went pretty well and we were able to get it finished by lunch time. The only problem was that the grout stained the granite. It is going to take some work to get it out. I should have protected the counter top before I started the grout. I didn't think that it would stain. I tried at the beginning to wipe it off to make sure it would come off ok, and it did. But once it sat for a while, the haze really got set into the granite. I didn't realize that granite was so porous.

Anyway, once the grout cured for a few days we were able to seal it so we could be ready to move in the appliances on the weekend. This past weekend my parents came up to spend the day with us and my dad helped me get the big appliances in. We started with the dishwasher. It went pretty smoothly, we just needed to figure out the best way to route the water line and drain line to under the sink.

Next we installed the range. It didn't go quite as smoothly. The range had pretty tight tolerances and it was almost exactly as tall as the cabinets with the finished counter top. This would have been fine except the floor wasn't perfectly level so some of the cabinets needed to be trimmed down to make the counter top level. That plus the thickness of the finished floor and the range ended up being too tall. To solve the problem we had to cut out the flooring where the range contacted the floor allowing it to sit lower. After quite a bit of finagling we finally got the range installed.

Next we moved the refridgerator into it's new location. We needed to take apart one of the door frames to get the fridge through the door from the old kitchen without having to take off the doors. The fridge fit without any problems and it looks nice in the cabinet that extends the entire depth of the fridge.

The final major appliance to install was the microwave. We had already put it in its location, but we didn't set it up to vent the fan outside. This was necessary to use the stove top. Since the microwave had already been mounted it didn't take long to pull it down, install the vent and put it back up.

Somewhere in there we also installed the sink faucet.

That evening I got all the doorknobs installed on the cabinet doors and the doors hung on the cabinets. Monday night I got all the cup pulls installed on the drawers and the drawers installed. And last night I got the garbage disposal installed and hooked up to the sink drain. The kitchen is now ready to move into... almost. There's currently no hot water in the new kitchen so I need to hook that up under the house. THEN we are ready to move into the kitchen!

Moving into the new kitchen is a big milestone for us. It's very exciting and we wouldn't have been able to do it without all the help and support of you - our family and friends. Thank you!

This week I need to finish getting the grout haze out of the granite and hook up the hot water. Then I need to get the electrical panel setup to pass the inspection and get going on the stucco.