new counter tops

B and I worked for a month on this "little project." We had several helpers for various stages...however when we mentioned GROUT the crew fled. I began grouting and learned why...grouting is terrible.

Anyway- before we had this crazy awful laminate countertop. I'm on our NEW LAPTOP [MacBook Pro...LOVE IT...more on this later, I'm sure], so I don't have the old pictures but you can imagine. Click here to see older pics of kitchen. Grandpa A.J. built a piece that we added on too give us an additional foot for a barstool area. We tore up the laminate. Scraped off the glue. Ripped out the sink. Added new sink. Water all over kitchen [remember that post]. Tiled. Tiled. Tiled. Cut tile. Cut tile. House smelled like cut tile-gross. Grout. Grout. Grout. Snow storm. Grout. Wipe clean. Wipe clean. Seal. Viola. A month later...an awesome counter top :) We truly do love it and it seems like I have MILES of counter space now [I don't know if that is because I helped in the tiling process and it felt like miles or if it is because of actual square footage...either way, I appreciate what I have]. Here are a few pictures of the crazy process. Enjoy.

[Okay, so blogger acts different on this computer and I can't get my pictures to rearrange...so they are backwards-- start at the bottom and scroll up to see progress...start at top and scroll down to see regression. Whatever.

Heartshaped pancakes on Valentine's day...on our new counter top :)

Here is the picture of my mug cabinet after consolidating a few :) Read here if you missed this post

Dishes Brent got me as a Valentine's day present. Every time I went to Kohls I would check the price on these babies and see if they were on sale. Even if they were, it was never enough to justify getting new dishes. Brent told me I could get them for Vday....I had a 20% coupon AND they were buy one [box set] get one free. :) THEY ARE AWESOME.

Finish product :) The edge pieces that were sold with this tile were almost $5 a piece...we would have needed to spend over 500 on those pieces alone... so I found 4X4 tile that matched and we made our own edge pieces. More cutting but we like the way it turned out.

[Pause for question: In all the magazine makeovers that I see when designers re-do a kitchen they always take things off the fridge and leave it empty. Sure this makes the space look "cleaner" but I like my pictures on the fridge... What do you think? Do you have pictures on yours? My dad always told my mom that he thought she had so many magnets on the front of the fridge that it would suck the back to the front :)]

My unbelievable new sink. LOVE IT. Composite granite. It is so fantastic. And the new faucet it more than I deserve :) Brent and his dad put it in together. They are awesome.

Love it!

The snow storm that kept me home for four days and gave me more time to work on counter

The day that water went every where ! So much fun.

Laying the tiles

The project that would never end... and it's SO weird we're going backwards...

what a stud

after ripping out the sink...the hole. and this is what the counter looked like after ripping up laminate

Backerboard.

Old, small, stained, gross sink

The pantry that Grandpa and Kirby built, pre-tile

Getting started. You can see the extension that Grandpa built here. Getting ready to lay the backerboard.

Now that it is finished come one over and eat supper with us!! I have plenty of mugs :)