The next project was tiling the kitchen, bathroom, pantry, front entry, and coat closet. It started with us taking a step backwards.  When we laid the hardwood floor, we hadn't reached a decision as to what we were going to do with the landing from our stairs. We couldn't decide if we should lay wood or tile there. So we figured we'd just lay the wood and then come back and cut it if we decided to tile there instead. Mistake. It was impossible to get off. We spent a whole Saturday (literally. From 8am to 9pm. No breaks) trying to remove the wood that we placed in a 3ft area. Frustrating! And talk about wasting a whole valuable Saturday on something we could have avoided. Oh well! We live and learn, I guess.

 

At least now we have tons of confidence in the glue that's keeping the rest of our floor down. This floor is here to stay!

 These babies saved my life. The sawing, hammering, chiseling got really loud!

So obviously we decided to place tile below our stairs, and we placed them on an angle. 

The hardest part of this project was getting the cuts exact. I was not the one doing the cutting, thank goodness. It looked really tricky, especially on all the rounded edges like around the stairs. My uncle let us borrow his tile saw, which was extremely helpful. We also had to pull out the fridge, oven, and bathroom sink to tile underneath them. 

I haven't taken any After photos, but since this picture, we have set the rest of the tile (except we have a few more to lay in the bathroom), and grouted the whole floor. Next we'll need to seal the grout, and then we'll be done with the floor! I'll post some After- pics when I can.

Next up: I've painted the front living and dining rooms, and got some beautiful furniture :)

Countertop and Backsplash

Next we got our countertops. It was just our luck that the manufacturers had cut out the wrong sink, so we had to send one of the pieces back to be remade with the correct cutout for our sink.  This took an extra week, but we were so used to being counter-less that it really didn't matter. The harder part was being without a sink for a week. Ever since we had moved the half wall in our kitchen (which was like the week after we moved in) we had been counter-less because the men had to demo the counters in order to move the wall. Luke and I had basically gotten used to getting all of our dishes, silverware, etc. out of the living room where we were storing all of our kitchenware until we were able to bring them back into the kitchen.  Needless to say, we are SO grateful to have counters now!

Finally, we got the correct sink cutout and they delivered the last piece of the counter, and we were able to hook up our sink. It was actually really difficult living without a sink for a week. I had to wash dishes in our bathroom sink, which seemed gross to me somehow. And just cleaning and wiping things up I would instinctively want to throw things in the sink, but couldn't.  

After that we put up our backsplash. I think it turned out great! It was a compromise between me and Luke's preferences. I like the glass tiles and he wanted all stone, so we met in the middle and I'm so glad we did!

 

 

We haven't caulked between the counter and backsplash yet, so the gap won't be there much longer. 

Now the kitchen's ALMOST done! We're almost finished with the tile floor, and then it'll be finished! Yay!!