what's that drip?!

this weekend we finally hooked up the kitchen sink, faucet, garbage disposal, and dishwasher! the kitchen is actually starting to look and feel like a kitchen. now, if we could just find the time to tie up the loose ends and clear out the construction refuse, we could cook something and eat on real plates and use real silverware...

we also installed the remaining hardware on the cabinets. here are some pictures which show the "completed" sink side, oven side, and dry bar:







we also finished painting the window trim and installed baseboards in the lounge:



stay tuned - we're not done yet! we still have to paint the dining room, side door, finish the baseboards...

what's that smell?!

it's a functional oven!



we had to celebrate another step towards civilization by baking a frozen pizza. we connected the cooktop and installed the oven in its cabinet this weekend. it wasn't without trials though, as the gas regulator for the cooktop would have gotten in the way of the oven:



a little plumbing and it was easy-breezy:



after the cooktop and oven were in place, unbeknownst to us there was one final, crucial step; jason had to crawl under the house and pull the wire for the oven to the electric panel and install a new breaker and connect some loose electrical to power the cooktop ignitor.

here's the cooktop in action:



in addition, we grouted the backsplash:

all about the backsplash

from the very beginning of the kitchen design, we knew that we wanted the focal point of the kitchen to be the backsplash. we purposely chose fairly mellow cabinets, countertop, and paint (with the exception of the faux finish in the lounge) so we could select a fun, bright backsplash.

friday we spent running around town getting supplies and familiarized ourselves with cutting tiles; tiny 3/4" glass tiles are much more fragile than the 12" slate floor tiles. by the end of the day, we laid the glass tile in the lounge window box:



on saturday we finished hanging the rest of the tile.

the stove side:



the sink side:



the dry bar:



a detail view of the bar tile:




we hoped to grout on sunday, but unfortunately, someone applied the thinset too thickly in some places so the whole day was lost to scraping the extra thinset out from between the tiles using a tiny screwdriver. it was not pleasant.

at the end of the weekend, the foreman christened our work:

the dawn of civilization

we kicked off the weekend by applying an acid wash to the slate floor to remove the grout haze. that did wonders for the floor, but seeing the gold flecks in the slate catch the sun is a sight that cannot be seen in a photo. after sealing the floor, there was nothing stopping us from hooking up some appliances.

to install the refrigerator, jason had to crawl under the house to run the water line from the sink to refrigerator cabinet. once that was done, installing the fridge was a piece of cake. we now have an unlimited supply of cold water and ice cubes!



next up was the washer and dryer. when we moved into this house 14 months ago, we knew something would be done to the kitchen/laundry room so we decided to wait to buy a washer and dryer, which meant 14 months of going to the laundromat. this was an exciting day. after lori flexed her muscles and helped jason stack the dryer, all of the connections were made and we truly entered the civilized world.



here's the view from the laundry to the kitchen:



we also hung the last two pendants over the bar:



here's another close-up, the glass on these pendants is more interesting than those over the sink:



we also hung all of the curio doors:



here's the laundry sink base with doors and hardware (also note the faucet - it actually works now!):



a close-up of our hardware choice: