Light at the End of the Tunnel

You may have noticed that my posting has been a bit scant lately, and that is mostly due to moving, working, going to school at night (to get my real estate license... long story, but I have a 10-hr/week job now and my employer is paying for me to get licensed-- bad timing, but I'm glad to have a little extra income, so I'm just squeezing it in somehow), and home renovations.  Since we closed on May 1st we have been pretty much constantly working on the house.... mostly everything has gone about how we expected, but there have been a few "exceptions" that have cost us time, money, frustration, and usually a combination of all three.  

Finally though, I have some before and after pics to share.  I waited so long to post the "before"s because honestly, until this week, I'm not sure we had one room completely finished and I didn't have any "after"s!  

First up is the kitchen, which by far was the biggest project we undertook.  Here is a before pic:

We first thought we would paint the cabinets and try to replace the backsplash with new tile, but after some research we determined that they needed to be painted by a pro w/ a paint gun in order for them to turn out nicely.  When we got the quote for repainting we checked on what it would be for new cabinets just for kicks and it turned out to be cheaper!  Since we didn't have any custom sizes, the company was able to use inventory left over from another job and we got a great deal on the counter and cabinets.  It was pretty tough living without a kitchen for 3 weeks while all the work was going on, but worth it in the end! 

Here are some "during" pictures:

The week we moved in was probably the rainiest week we've had in 5 years!  We don't have a garage to store things in, so the kitchen (which is right off the deck) became the emergency storage area for all the tools and supplies we didn't want to get soaked.  What a mess!!!!

Here's Daniel with the "sawsall" that he bought on craigslist.... He claims his "manliness quotient" has gone way up since acquiring it.

Daniel and his dad were in charge of removing all the old cabinets/counters/backsplash/sink.  All in all, it came out pretty quickly.  But.... 

.... unfortunately that navy tile was there to stay, so in order to get it off, they had to cut out the drywall behind it (enter Sawsall, and Unexpected Project #1). 

My dad was in charge of hanging the new drywall:

And here was the "finished" product... for 10 days. =)

Other more "minor" things we did in the kitchen were to take down the ceiling fan, paint the trim/walls, replace the range hood with a microwave (which actually is still pending b/c we just found a scratch and dent micro @ Lowes today, so it wont go up until Monday-- an electrical box has to be installed and Daniel hasn't ventured into electricity yet, so we're getting a friend from church to help us out), installed under-cabinet lighting, put in a new faucet (courtesy of my dad, though I did put it together!  (OK, he walked me through it on the phone)), changed out the receptacles from "almond" to white, and just generally cleaned the place since it was pretty nasty after all the work going on around it.  

Here are the "after pics" minus the microwave:

I thought Daniel did an awesome job on the backsplash... he did this cool cut-out with some glass tiles above the sink and then installed an extra under-counter light there, so it really shines nicely.  

We're both really happy with the way the whole kitchen came out.  (of course, special thanks to my mom who picked it all out!)