The Kitchen Counter

Anytime you take on the challenge of renovating a part of your home, whether it be updating the bathroom, changing the flooring, finishing the basement or just painting a room, it can be quite the experience. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. 

Even before my husband and I had purchased the house we are in now, we knew that it was in need of a renovation. Thankfully Jason is handy, and I am a dreamer... and I can also use a paint brush. We signed the dotted line, and it was done; we were home owners. 

Over the course of a year and a half, we had got engaged, bought a home, got married, started to tear apart our house, found out we were expecting, and then last June we had our first baby. So needless to say our house got "put on hold". Which is a sad way of saying, we were too busy to install a kitchen, or lay hardwood floors, or even paint. But slowly we were checking things off our list... the very long list. 

Before we moved in, this is what our kitchen looked like:

Now, there wasn't really anything wrong with this kitchen, except that it was ugly, old, and dirty. And before I became a stay at home mom I was a Kitchen Designer, so I came up with a brilliant plan to redesign the layout, tear down the interior walls, and install the kitchen of my dreams. 

Since Jason is a cabinet installer and a licensed carpenter, he jumped on board and we got to work. Within the first week and a half of owning our little bungalow, it looked like this:

Walls were removed, flooring ripped up, tile installed, kitchen demolished, bulkheads gone... and we were left with no kitchen. Now some people might have called us crazy... I sure thought we were! But it was an adventure. I was left with one cabinet to hold my sink and a 18" piece of countertop beside to work with. I cooked all the meals from July till January that way. It was a challenge, but I knew someday the kitchen would be installed, and my house would no longer be a construction zone. 

And the day came to install the cabinets. It might have been one of the happiest days of my life. I could finally unpack my dishes, organize my pots and pans, and place my cups in a real cupboard. Now, it didn't happen in a day, or even a week. This was also a slow process. Once all the cabinets and trim was installed, we were left with just the countertop to install. Because we wanted quartz, we knew we had to wait because of financial reasons. So we did, we waited a whole year. 

But today was the day! Jason removed our melamine temp countertops (with the help of my brothers), and the new quartz counters got installed, along with a new sink, faucet and dishwasher. 


It is hard to see in the pictures because its so dark, but this is what the countertop colour is: 

CeasarStone White Ash

It has been a great day in our house. I am so excited to put everything back in its place. I have been staring at the quartz since it arrived in our house. 


Obviously we still have a bit more to do before I can say that the kitchen is 100% finished, but it is getting there, and today we checked off a bunch of stuff that was on the list. 

• Cabinetry
• Sink
• Appliances (we have only purchased the dishwasher so far)
• Faucet
• Trim work around the windows and doors
• Flooring
• Electrical
• Counters

Have you done any major or minor renovations in your house lately? Maybe you are just working yourself up to the day you call the contractor to get started. It takes a lot of hard work, and patience to live through a renovation, but I know that it is worth it in the end!