New Sink

In our last post we shared how we gutted out our old sink as we were replacing our old counter-tops with gorgeous granite. I neglected to show the after pictures of the sink that we had installed. Trust me- it's just as amazing as the counters.

Here are the before pictures of our old sink: stained and yucky.This faucet wasn't bad- just not very glamorous. Plus, it only twisted into the sink on the right... it wouldn't turn the other direction unless you pulled it out and used the hose.

Here you can better see the stained sink basin. It's supposed to be ivory white but it's really more yellow with some old ring marks that would not be scrubbed away.

Upon closer inspection you can see how clearly neglected this sink was. Where did anyone wash anything? It doesn't seem like soap ever hit this drain! So yuck! This is also stained a nice putrid rust color.

This is the part that made me truly happy to toss this sink out. This is the bottom of the soap dispenser (which didn't have the dispenser attached to it anyway). Nicely rusted and corroded.


And here are the after pictures of our beautiful new under-mount stainless steel sink complete with no rusty soap dispenser, clean drains and stain free basin :)

Here's my favorite part. Our garbage disposal button :) The elderly gentleman got scared when I shouted with excitement as he showed us this option. So 21st century, yay!

And here's the whole shibang. We love our beautiful faucet and flawless sinks!

Now the only problem that we have is that the sink is so pretty that we don't want to put any dirty dishes in it!

First Major Project- COMPLETE!

Last Monday our counter-tops were finally installed and they are far more beautiful than we could have imagined! It is so amazing how changing one room can give your whole house a face-lift! When you see our kitchen now you have to second guess yourself, "Am I in a new house?" Fantastic!!!

Before the counters could be installed we had to completely remove the old plywood that was serving as our temporary counters. We also had to rip out the old sink (good riddance) and turn off all the plumbing. Here's what that process looked like:

Here's Thomas disconnecting the plumbing:

And here he is tearing out the old sink! So heavy!

Taking it out to the pile of the remains of our old kitchen:

Where the sink used to be:

Starting to remove the wood counters:You can see that we had started to graffiti on the wood :)

All ready for new granite counters:

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that we weren't only putting granite in the kitchen! We also have a hallway cabinet that could use a little love. We thought that it would tie the kitchen and hallway together nicely if we used the same granite there too and give the main section of the house a nice flowy feeling. So we had to pry off the old wood that was on top of those cabinets as well- but instead of having no top at all (like in the kitchen) there was still the top of the cabinets underneath. So we decided to do something fun and create a type of time-capsule for any future residents that might undo our current upgrade.

This is what we did:That's kinda fun, right? Well, we thought so.... and this is what the hallway cabinets looked like after we installed the granite:

Ooh, you've got chills right? It looks THAT good!!! Okay, maybe you might not- but we definitely do. And now for the grand finale... the kitchen :)

They even matched the glue that they use to seal any gaps.

And here it is- TADA!!!!!

Goodbye crummy tile- Hellooooooo granite :) Imagine us doing our happy dance here- because we totally are :)

♫ We've only just beguuuuun ♫

The weather is starting to turn here in Phoenix. We kept hearing that the fall and winter were wonderful but we had been experiencing a prolonged summer this year :( But I am happy to report that we have been experiencing cooler temperatures as of late (it was even chilly enough in the house the other day that I got to bust out my fuzzy slippers) and I couldn't be happier! With cooler temperatures brings more energy for me and more energy equals the ability for me to do MORE instead of sit on the sidelines and watch Thomas do most of the heavy duty work (which I'm sure he will appreciate as well).

Demolition has begun in our kitchen... well, what's left of our kitchen anyway. I had to fly off to Los Angeles to work on the Long Beach Marathon and Thomas took that opportunity to gut our kitchen counters. Boy am I glad that he did it while I was away. The mess, the noise, the dust would have been enough to make me chew my fingers down to nubs. On top of all of that Thomas preferred that my asthmatic lungs not be exposed to that much flying debris. Thank the Lordy for that!

It all started out just a little bit at a time so that we could experience how easy (or how difficult, rather) this job really was going to be.
And the job continued while I was away in California for work. Pardon all of the grainy photographs but I took my camera with me on my trip so Thomas took these pictures to send me updates on his progress while I was away. Here's what the process looked like:

We still have to rip out the sink but we obviously don't want to do that until the last minute. We don't want to be stuck without a sink!! For now we're living with our lovely plywood counters complete with old staples and splinters galore! It's still way better than the tile and horrible grout!

Side-note: We had decided to do the demo ourselves because our kitchen is so large that it would have cost more than $800 to have someone do it for us. So we though, "No problem- we'll do it ourselves!" I mean, who doesn't like saving $800? Well, Thomas says that if we ever do anything like this again that we will definitely be shelling out the dough to have someone do it for us. Apparently he did not enjoy it!

Our counter-tops were supposed to be installed this Wednesday and I was uber excited about the kitchen being near completion before Halloween but, alas, my civic duty calls and I have jury duty for the time that the install was scheduled for so we'll have to wait another couple of days and have them installed the following Monday. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for the main living spaces to have the big projects done by the end of the year.

Kitchen: Phase 1 (Complete)

Our kitchen is finally put back together! Well, almost. We still have to put the panels back that go under the sink but first we need to find new hardware that attaches to hold ouR sponge, scrubber, etc. But besides that we have our kitchen back! All the cabinet doors are back on and the drawers are back in their place (thank goodness- that clutter was stressful!). Now we have our beautiful chocolate kitchen. Ready for the big reveal? Hold on- we have to remind you what the before looked like- so you can really get a feel for how different it looks now :)

BEFORE:

AND AFTER:

We absolutely love it! As it is now there is a huge contrast between our white tile counter tops and the milk chocolatey cabinets but once we get out granite counter tops installed we'll have a perfect balance between our new darker kitchen and our sandy painted walls.

We're going back to order our countertops around September 30th (when they have some extra special deals on granite) and will hopefully have our whole kitchen finished before Halloween! We're so excited! Even with just the paint change it's given our kitchen a whole new fresh look! The granite and door hardware will really just be the icing on the cake :)

A Work in Progress: Painting Our Kitchen

After looking at the paint swatches that we had taped to our cabinets for a week we decided on a milk chocolate brown to paint our cabinets. It would be a nice contrast against our light walls and it matches pretty perfectly with the countertops that we have picked out. So now we begin the process of DIY: paint your kitchen cabinets edition.First things first: we had to remove all of the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and with a kitchen as large as ours that alone was a time consuming endeavor. Thomas bust out his trusty drill and got to work. On top of that- each door and drawer had some sticky goo leftover from the rubber stoppers that were on the back of each of them so that needed to be removed as well before I started painting.
Next it was time for me to tape it all up and paint away. Unfortunately all of the "fail-proof" tape didn't work on our textured walls so I'll still have to go around with touch up paint to cover up what bled under the tape :o(
And now the real process gets started. I went around all the nooks and crannies with a regular paintbrush- just in the places I wouldn't be able to get with a roller. Any brush marks left behind would be easily covered with our polyester roller.

Here's the before. See? Lots of cabinets!

This is after I got all the nooks and crannies...And what they look like with two beautiful coats applied:
Now we just have to wait a few days to make sure that they are completely dry. In the meantime I went around with a craft sponge brush to get all the little extra nooks around the cabinets that are just too small to get a roller or a paint brush in there. Using a steady hand my DIY paint job looks just as good as if we were to pay someone $3,000 to do it for us. (That's an actual quote that we got- that's when we said "FORGET THAT! We're doing it ourselves!)

You'll have to wait for the next post to see what the kitchen looks like when it's all put together with the new paint. In the meantime, I've included a picture of what our kitchen looks like at this very moment- a mess! So stressful! I can't wait for it to be finished and everything to be put back in it's rightful spot!

Kitchen Makeover- The Beginning

Our home was used as a rental property for years before we purchased it. As a result, many of the fix-its around the house were done poorly and cheaply. As time goes on we find more and more things that aren't up to par but nothing serious has really come up- so far everything is fixable. For example: our ancient front door hardware- replaced, the rotten toilet parts- fixed, the broken sprinkler system- we're working on it.

This house needs a lot of tlc that it just hasn't been getting. With our newly acquired rebate we decided that the first thing that needs a facelift is our dated kitchen. We've got white tile countertops with stained grout that seems to embody all the colors of the rainbow embedded in the 15 year old grout. Yuck. The cabinets aren't in bad shape, but they need to be refinished and have some hardware added. Luckily the inside of the cabinets look brand new! We've already tackled replacing the old appliances and adding a microwave over the stove... but now it's time to get into the big time stuff!

But before we jump all the way into a kitchen renovation we decided to sand down the backside of one of the cabinet doors and stain it the color we were thinking of doing the kitchen. Thank goodness for sample size stains! It looked awful! The wood grain in the door sucked up so much of the stain that it was many shades darker than the rest- not the look we are going for at all. So instead of staining, we have decided to paint.

I picked out a bunch of paint swatches and taped them to one of the cabinets so that I could look at them for a few days in different lights before settling on a color. I also got a paint sample to paint the cabinet door to make sure that the paint went on smooth and evenly.
If all goes according to plan- this weekend will be dedicated to painting the cabinets. Keep an eye out for the next post to be the after pictures! Soon after that we should be looking into getting our new countertops! Re-doing the kitchen is going to be giving our whole house a facelift!!! We're really excited about it!