a year ago we started the process of renovating the kitchen in the house Mario owns. I say it this way because I moved in and shortly after walls started to come down. I am my fathers daughter what can I say Anyway, last spring and summer we did a majority of the heavy demolition. At one point we had the walls down to the studs and the floors down to the subfloor.

It was interesting to me to see the different layers of this house as we took it apart. When we took the counter tops off there was this red linoleum behind the backsplash (interesting). And when we took the floors up, under the vinyl that was on top there was a sort of particle think wood board that had been stapled down with what seemed like an obsessive amount of staples that we had to pry out. Then under that there was this linoleum that must have been put in when the house was built or maybe just a little later. It had patterns and a border to it. So once we took that up all that was left was the subfloor which my dad thought might be a usable hardwood floor, with a layer of linoleum glue with paper on top of that. Taking that paper up was not the most amusing job. It involved soaking the floor and being really gummy from all the glue that came up with the paper. In the end we decided to cover the floors with bamboo so oh well.

we got to a point in our remodel where it was time to build it back up. I had installed the insulation, the electricity was in, but the idea of installing the walls was very daunting. While I know its not rocket science, its something we didn’t know how to do, and there was so much of it that if we were to do it, and the pace we normally take to do things, it would have taken another year or so to finish, so Mario made the executive decision to hire some guys to do the floors and the walls and get it to the point where we could paint and put in the cabinetry that we had purchased from Ikea over a year ago.

We went on our trip to Italy and when we got home we had floors and walls!  it was really wonderful to have that done because it was such a huge step.  We got Mario’s step dad to paint the walls.  Two walls are this wonderful Chocolate brown, and the other wall that goes seamlessly into the living room is a light tan.  For some it would be to bold of a choice, but for use it was just right.

With the painting done, we were now ready to put the cabinets in.  They were very easy to put together although, installing them was at times a little awkward as the walls on this house and the room itself are not level.  But we had adjustable feet that helped some, and then for the rest we had to make it as even as possible and “make it work” as they say.  The day after thanksgiving while Mario was at work and some of my wonderful family came over and helped my put up the upper cabinets and then slide the lower cabinets into place.  I think having those in place we could really see what our kitchen was going to look like and motivated us to get the rest of it finished.

The counter top was sort of hard to pick out.  At first we thought maybe tile, then maybe the Corian, but then found out it was WAY outside of our budget.  Then we thought maybe concrete, but then realized that would also be out of the range of possibility for this house.  So one day at Home depot, we found this beautiful Marble.  It is a veriable marble and no tile is the same, with dark chocolaty tones, and the light tan tones that are on the walls, and this wonderful sheen.  It was really going to cap off the cabinets well.  We had a little hiccup when getting them installed.  For some reason the guy putting the tile down laid a section of them so that the seam didn’t match up with another section of tile, and though I felt like a total bitch for asking him to do it, I new I would not be able to stand the way it looked and asked him to relay those tiles.  He was totally understanding about it.  we got worried that some of the tiles might break when they got taken up so we had to go and scour the home depot for more (they had already been discontinued).  But in the end, none of the broke and he was able to take a bunch of them back.   So now we have a stunning  counter top if I do say so myself.

Once the counter was in, the sink could go in, but of course not without a hiccup of its own.  The sink was fine, the faucet, the wonderful modern faucet that we special ordered was not.  The part that goes through the counter and then gets screwed to something below it was too short so we had to return that and then get another one.  We just decided to get a nice one that wouldn’t have to be special ordered so that we could keep our forward momentum.  Once the faucet was installed the disposal and the dishwasher could be hooked up.  The first day that we had a working sink was like a christmas miracle, without it being Christmas.  We have been using the utility sink in the laundry room which is one of the reasons it probably took us so long to get our asses in gear (with a work around you can take your time).

I have posted before about how Mario dubbed me the electrician of the house.  After the counters and everything went in I started hooking up all the new outlets.  To get the diswasher up and going we had to install all the outlets along one wall and we put a plug on the back of it instead of just attatching the wire to the wall.  The next most important thing was the garbage disposal power.  the outlet for that had been installed long ago, but the switch was what i needed to figure out.  It took me two days, a couple of times of almost getting electrocuted and one big scary spark but with the help of the wiring book i bought and the internet the last thing i tried worked.  There were three wires going in, to the box and and two of them had the usual 3 wires, but then the other one had a red wire and oh man was that confusing.  We almost called in the second guy we had to finish the electricity but, like i said, i finally got it.