Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Kitchen - part 3

But wait... I thought the kitchen was done?  What is this all about?  Dishwasher details?  Nope, sorry.  But I was right there with you as far as thinking this was done... until my family came to visit for Easter.   Not exactly sure how it happened, but next thing I knew we were back at Lowe's - my parents, sister and her boyfriend included - looking at Formica colors, sinks, faucets, etc.  Somehow we managed to convince my husband that granite is not the only option for a kitchen countertop, and that we could make a wonderful - and much more reasonably priced - change by simply picking new laminate.  We picked a color (from the 4 colors of countertop that they carry in-stock) and thought we could install it ourselves, perhaps with the help of a handyman with a bit of experience.
On their way out of town, Mom called her handyman, who gave her the name of a laminate installer buddy of his.  Within a few days, "Bob the builder" (turns out he lives next door to a co-worker of mine whose young children lovingly gave him this nickname) was over to give us his thoughts.  For various reasons, we couldn't use the in-stock pieces, but his price was very affordable, and his schedule was open enough to get us done before Baby, which was crucial since we were about 4 weeks from due date.  Pro: we got to go back to the sample-board to pick a new color... great since I hadn't actually been 100% sold on the in-stock one we had picked.  Con: we had to go back to the sample-board to pick a new color... this time, without the color-wise eyes of my family members in tow.  We came up with the following options:


Didn't take too long to eliminate the middle option due to the distinct leaf pattern that I wasn't sure we wanted on as big a space as our kitchen counter (it was called "Frosted Leaves" after all).  But then we got stuck.  I wanted the lighter top color as I feared the lower would be too dark.  Isaac wanted the darker color, fearing the other would be too similar to what we have and would show too many spots.  We nagged votes from 2 family members... who were also split down the middle.  Oh man.  Headed out on the morning of my birthday to buy the new sink, faucet, disposal, etc. planning to poll my cousins that afternoon when they came over to celebrate, and hoping they'd break the tie.  We stopped at the sample-board again, and (yeah God!) stumbled across another color we must have missed the first time around:

Though closer to the dark one, it was light enough that I thought it might be okay, and yet dark enough that Isaac felt comfortable.  My cousins' votes, interestingly enough, had one going for either of the 2 lighter colors, and the other for either of the 2 darker!  Thus, the middle ground won :)  Isaac and I both felt good about it, and we had external confirmation that we weren't making a terrible mistake.  By Friday, our buddy Bob was over and ready to get to work.  He took it from this:




to this:



to this:
 to this:





in about 36 hours (no worries, he went home to sleep for part of that time!).  Wow.  What a difference!  I'll be honest, the darker countertop took a bit of getting used to. 
 But the sink, faucet, and filtered water dispenser had me at hello :)
 In all it's completed glory:





FINISHING the kitchen project... Soli Deo Gloria.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Christmas in May!

So much for being "back" to blogging.  Oops.  All kinds of posts in the works, but the long and short of it is that now that pre-baby prep is essentially finished, perhaps I can use some of my "down time" before his arrival to update this.  No promises, since you see how well I did with that last time :)

Anyway, no time like the present, and what's a post without pictures?  After using my 10% off Amazon registry completion coupon, this is what I came home to today:

Felt like just a little bit of Christmas, I tell you!  Of course, I already knew what was in all these boxes, but still fun none-the-less.  What was in them, you ask?  I certainly wouldn't be so rude as to keep that a secret.  Here you go:
What you see there is a Graco Travel Lite Stages playpen in Nottingham (to be used as bassinet & pack 'n play), some Seventh Generation wipes, a crib bedding set, some unbleached cotton cloth diapers, 2 Kissaluv's diaper pail liners and a pair of Lily Padz.  Oh yeah, and an under-the-sink water filter.  See - isn't that kinda like Christmas?  I mean, if you have a baby on the way it is.

Shopping for baby... Soli Deo Gloria.