the kitchen.

I'm glad I took a break from writing in between last night and today.  I was a little out of it, and I promptly fell asleep on the couch watching a show on Russia.  I'm afraid my writing didn't reach it's usual witty potential.  I plan to make up for that with my kitchen post.

hell no.

First, let me start out with a picture of what the kitchen looked like before Lou moved in.  Oh... hell no.  When I see that much wood and wallpaper, I think Cracker Barrel.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  Those little games they have are awesome, and don't get me started on how tasty the menu is. After Lou and his bro moved in, they replaced the counter tops, dishwasher and refrigerator.  They took down the wood craziness above and under the cabinets, de-wooded the wall next to the fridge, and painted.

NO!

Flash forward to 2011.  The kitchen still needed a little help.  The tiled back splash was... well...  not installed properly.  All of the seems (next to the counter and the cabinets) were grouted.  A big no-no.  You caulk those seems to allow for expansion/contraction.  Since the person grouted them, the tiles began to crack and break.  Which showed that they tiled over wallpaper.  WHO DOES THAT?!  The tile had to go.  I told Lou that I'd give him a proposition and a budget showing that I could re-tile the backsplash into something special.  Skeptical at first maybe, but once he saw my research, drawings and spreadsheet... he caved agreed.

love notes on the backerboard. 

I was perusing Ebay and Googling Mexican Talavera Tiles when Lou suggested that we look into pricing glass tiles.  Nothing against glass tiles, but most tiles I saw were plain and uninspired. So, I decided to Google "colorful glass tile backsplash" and most of the images came from a company called Susan Jablon Mosaics, located up in Binghampton, NY.  Ah... the colors, the colors!!!  After choosing several 1/4 sheet samples, we locked into ordering our favorite: Aurora Blend.  We started demoing the kitchen in September, and after months of work (on and off and on and off and...)  we FINALLY finished, at 12:15am on the morning on Friday, December 2nd.**  We still have a little more to paint, but there's no rush on that.  After we finished the tile work, we vowed not to do anything else until after the holidays.  We're going to install under cabinet lighting, some extra storage drawers in the bottom cabinets, and finish painting in the coming months.  I'm just waiting for a snowy weekend to do it.

**WHY would I stay up that late to work on the kitchen?  Because on December 2nd, we were hosting Lou's 40th birthday party.  Our last weeks of working on the kitchen were that of a marathon pace.  After ripping out the stove and range hood, we finished up all the hardibacker, installed the range hood, cleaned profusely, repaired the walls, primed the bare drywall, taped the seams and started tiling.  Tiling took FOREVER.  We had to do a couple repairs for tiles that didn't adhere correctly. We had to wait 24-48 hours after tiling to grout.  Then another day before the caulk.  Finally, the oven went in.  You don't realize how much you miss an oven until you don't have one to cook on for three weeks.  You are correct in assuming that I didn't do s*** the rest of that weekend.

Whoops, there goes a month!

Ack, it's been too long since I've posted!  So much has happened in the past month, so I decided that I'm going to break it on down into a couple posts over the week, so I don't get carpel tunnel updating what's going on. First, let's chat about the quilt.  The last time I wrote, I mentioned that I had finished sewing all 224 squares... still an accomplishment that I'm proud of!

I brought the squares with me to my family's Thanksgiving dinner.  I asked everyone that was there to sign the back of a square, so that when I sewed it together, I'd have all of my family with me.
(Pause for loving moment).

Here are all the signed squares!  There are 15 total that will be inserted into the 14 columns of the quilt.  Last weekend, I started said columns and so far it's going quite well!  I have 6 columns of 16 squares completed so far (96 total!).  I'm hoping that I can actually finish sewing the top of the quilt this weekend, which would be awesome!  Once that is done, I'll have to choose a backer fabric for the quilt.  That means a trip to the fabric store for me, huzzaaaah!

Here's a picture showing how thrilled I am at my progress. The quilt is starting to look real!!! I can't believe that all of these pieces of fabric I cut so long ago are forming an actual quilt.  Also, it shows how many lemon squares I ate over the past month.  Good thing I went to the Y today.