and then there were counters

the counters, caesarstone baja, were installed last tuesday, and then we went to vegas to finance this whole kitchen. the work gets done a lot faster when you pay someone else to do it, as we learned in this instance. an overall view:



from the dining room:



the kitchen sink:



the laundry sink:



the counters look like a solid color, but they have little granules and crystals which add some variation. we purposely chose a mellow surface color because we want the focal point of the kitchen to be the glass tile backsplash. in this picture, you can see the two sample sheets between which we were deciding:



we'll leave it as an exercise to the viewer to decide which sheet won and which one of us preferred which sheet...

a little trim goes a long way

we originally planned to work on the tile floor layout, but instead we decided to take advantage of our miter saw rental from the aerospace tool club and finish some loose ends. on saturday we cut and installed window trim around the box window in the lounge. it still needs to be caulked and painted, but it definitely looks a lot cleaner around the edges:



next we prepared the trim for the garden window. of course, nothing is simple; to accommodate the irregular wall surface around the garden window, we had to build a frame upon which the trim would sit. after making the cuts, we stained the trim and framing. on sunday morning, we installed the framing and trim:



we also installed the microwave and finished the light rail on the oven side:





unfortunately, the microwave isn't functional yet; home depot seems to be in short supply of 3.25 x 10 x 6 ducting that connects the microwave vent to the roof vent.

and finally, as requested, here's a pic of the new toilet in the spare bathroom:



we are taking next weekend off and heading to vegas. we need to pay for this kitchen somehow!

which came first - the dart or the egg?

we finally finished hanging the cabinets! the refrigerator cabinet and end panel went up with ease, now that we are cabinet installation experts. we attached the crown molding on the refrigerator side and then moved onto installing the light rail (a decorative molding which goes on the bottom of the upper cabinets to hide the under cabinet lighting). the coup de grace of the weekend was attaching our very pretty but very expensive egg & dart insert into the light rail.







other non-picture worthy activities of the weekend included applying the final coat of stucco to the garden window, painting the lounge window trim, fighting over the backsplash mosaic tile colors, finishing some electrical work, and organizing the remaining supplies in the garage.

vegas, baby!

to make the lounge the drinking mecca it is meant to be, we decided to go with a new faux finish called "bellagio". we assume the finish is supposed to bring to mind the marbling and plaster of an old italian villa (or casino). first we used the dark orange trim paint:



next we applied a bright red over the orange:



it's intense! better to drink there at night than wake up there hung over in the morning:



a detailed pic:



we expect the brightness will get toned down when the window trim is painted deep orange and the slate floor is installed (or so we hope). besides the faux finish, we also hung the remaining oven-side cabinets:



on sunday we tackled the crown molding. here are shots of the crowned oven side and the dry bar (with the pretty camed glass doors):





only 1 cabinet over the fridge and end panel to hang and the cabinets are officially done!