Our Kitchen: Granite Install (the unofficial after)

We can now proudly say that we have a kitchen with GRANITE!! Just remember (as mentioned in my last post), Thursday morning our kitchen looked like this:  

I took the day off from work so I could be there to see the magic happen. It was pretty neat to see our granite pull up on a trailer (wish I would have thought to snap a pic, sorry!). The installers came in and immediately went to work on demolition of the old white counters. Because I wanted to be out of the way, me and Dixie headed back to hang out in the office. With all of the ruckus we were hearing, I was kind of nervous.

When the ruckus stopped for a minute, I  could tell that the installers took a break or had left the kitchen so I snuck out to take a peek. Our kitchen was counter-less!

Dixie and I went back in the office for a while, watched some TV, surfed the net, pinned on Pinterest, Facebook stalked and checked in on work email. I was talking to my Mom, she told me to go out and take a picture of the granite on the trailer before it goes in… and when I walked out I saw the first piece had already been installed!

Not too much longer, I came back out again to see that most of the granite was installed and the sink was set.

Another cool thing, my husband is a Big Green Egg enthusiast. Haven’t heard of a Big Green Egg? It’s a ceramic, charcoal cooker that can grill, smoke and bake. Anyways, B actually built a table for his BGE and we worked a deal with our granite installer to get a piece to top his table. It’s a different slab of granite than ours, but think it looks great!

As the afternoon progressed, so did the backsplash. I should mention that there was one “uh-oh” moment when the installer looked up at me, holding up a piece of tile and asks if I’m sure this is the ivory travertine I wanted because it looks a little darker. After examining and re-examining against the sample I was going off of, it was the right tile (PHEW!)  – just looked darker because the old, white backsplash was SO white compared to the ivory travertine.

Here we are as the grout was drying. The sink and faucet still needed work and the new outlet covers are TBD.

And for comparison take a look at this side-by-side of the before and progress!

Once I get re-situated, decorated, outlet covers installed and a few other updated details complete I’ll take an official, after pic to post!



Our Kitchen: The Before (Naked)

The granite installer comes..... TOMORROW! So, I just officially made our kitchen counters look naked. Sunday afternoon I worked to organize the top drawers, clean out a few cabinets, clear out all the supplies from under the sink and cleared off most of the counters except for the necesseties. 

After clearning off our Keurig coffee machine, utensil holder, paper towel holder, catch-all bowls and taking off all of the switch plates this is what's left.

Looks a little stark, huh?

The white trash compactor has never been touched in this house. By us or the previous owners. In fact, the user manual is still sitting inside the bin. B and I have talked about two different options for replacing this - wine refrigerator or pull-out trash can (I think trash can would be more practical, B thinks wine fridge would be cooler). What are your thoughts?

I never would have guessed I'd be so nervous about getting granite. Maybe it's just excitement that has me stirred up? Wish us luck tomorrow, can't wait to share "the after"!

Our Kitchen: The Before (Decorated)

The official count down to granite is..... 3 DAYS!! Since this granite deal is about to get real, I wanted to share The Before (Decorated) pictures of our kitchen. 

This is our kitchen looking it's Sunday best.

Literally, I spent Sunday morning cleaning and making our kitchen look spotless and in tact as it would be if we were having company. I realized that the only "current' pictures I have of our kitchen were from Christmas time - and as it should be no surprise, there was Christmas decor everywhere - so I wanted pictures just a normal, June day with no holiday/seasonal decor to be seen. 

  

Of course, you probably noticed that Lime Green and Mackenzie-Childs are "my thing". Aside from all of the cute green and checker decor, let me introduce you to 1995. Light woodwork, white counter-tops, formerly brass hardware and florescent lighting.

In reality, I don't think our kitchen is THAT bad. We just can't wait to get rid of the white, 'stains easy', 'see every crumb', 'hard to keep white' counter-tops and back-splash.  

And see this cute little corner nook with the lamp? It will also be getting 'granitized' - thanks to my Mom for the great idea!  

I heard that our granite installer was cutting our granite today... in preparation for Thursday's install!

Count down to granite: 3 DAYS!!! Eeeeek!