We lasted 30 days without plumbing in our kitchen. On Friday our contractor hung the remaining cabinets, installed our granite counter top, and hooked up our new sink and faucet. It felt surreal to sit in our new kitchen and eat Lucky Charms out of a paper bowl and see the changes. The kitchen should still be 32 years old, not days old.
When I was shopping for the the new kitchen, I was not shopping for me. I picked out whatever was the most popular style of cabinet and variety of granite to help the resale value of the condo. But my style is still present. Over the weekend we shopped for backsplash and lighting. I stared at tile after tile, hating everything. Everything looked cheap to me. The only thing I liked were stainless steel subway tiles, which is what we bought. At home Abraham took a square foot of tiles and held them up between the counter and the cabinets, and I think it looks really, really nice. These subway tiles are the only thing we paid full-price for; everything else we bargain shopped.
Abraham, my mom, and me craned our necks at the lighting options at Lowe's. I was insistent on track lighting because we desperately needed task lighting. We saw a model we all liked, but we couldn't find the box. An employee told us that the model had been discontinued long ago, but they never took down the fixture. My mother informed them that we would have no problem buying the display model, so the guy huffed up the ladder and unwired the fixture from the circuit. Then he gave us 60% off the cost. Another great deal for us.
As if we weren't gluttons enough for punishment, we went range shopping to try to get a Labor Day deal. I fell in love with a 5-burner, gas-operated Frigidaire convection oven. The prices weren't as low as I hoped for, but they did offer 36-month 0% interest on appliances. Abraham already had the store card, and I giggled when he financed the $770.00 oven for 36 months because it seems completely absurd.
Next on our list is to hire someone to install our light fixtures and beg my mother to come over and help us lay the tile for our backsplash. We also need to buy molding for the kitchen window to dress it up a bit. Then sometime in the future we need a new dishwasher, but I am so completely exhausted by this renovation that I am in no hurry. My 4-day weekend was spent in go mode. We haven't put our dishes away or set anything up yet; our entire kitchen is still on the floor of the guest bedroom. I am ready for everything to be done, but I am exhausted from putting in the work.
