A Kitchen Update

A Quick Kitchen Update

When we bought our home five years ago, I thought the kitchen was filled with beautiful cabinets, lots of space and area to cook. Over time, the countertop (which continued as a backsplash) became dark and dreary and seemed much harder to keep clean and shiny. In fact, I often cleaned it over and over again and it would seem dull and dreary to me. Sometimes, the next day I would find some leftover residue from cooking the day before that I missed on this dark combination of colors. This was the same countertop that I always misplaced my glasses on as they blended in. This happened many times during the day.

As we thought about painting the house, I realized if I was going to update my kitchen countertops I should do so before embarking on a big painting job. Don’t forget when you remove a countertop that is on a wall, you don’t know what you will find.

Well, we were very lucky. I perused countertops online, visited home stores and finally found the counter top I loved. It was white (so now I can find my glasses) with speckles of grey and some black. Our goal was to paint the house in grey tones so this would be perfect. I always liked the white counters looked. I even looked on Pinterest to see how my counter top would look with my honey maple cabinets. My cabinets are in perfect shape and we were not looking to do a kitchen renovation. Space was ample for our needs and we were excited to give our kitchen an uplift. So, we ordered the white/gray countertop which is a quartzite material, which is very durable and we were on our way.

While waiting for the installation, we shopped for a sink that I wanted which was very different. It was a composite granite sink in cement and would give this counter top a whole new look. We also bought a new, jazzy black swing-out type faucet to be the central focus of our kitchen, while complementing our granite sink.

Our next job was to find tiles for the small area of backsplash. We did not want to extend the countertop but rather accent it with subway like tiles. This process took us a long time. We found white, plain subway tiles, grey glossy subway tiles and others which made us a little bit confused. One day, we came upon these subway tiles (made in Turkey) that seemed like they were almost a match for our counters and the size they came in was perfect as well. It is important to see the size of the tiles in the smallest area of the kitchen. Originally, we found 3” x 6” tiles and then realized that one area which was 4” tall would not work well as we would have to cut all the tiles in this area and it would not look even or professional. So we went for the 4” x 12” tiles and they fit perfectly.

To complete the job, we had a new windowsill built to go above our subway tiles (at the focal point of our sink) and this was the finishing touch we needed. We were so pleased with all the pieces falling into place. Our only hurdle was getting everything to be installed and to not be without water for very long. After much coordination with the counter guys and the plumber/tile preparer, we were able to get our job completed in time for a special Easter dinner. The kitchen is not complete as it will be painted in the greys when we embark on our next home project of painting. That will be a little more tedious, I’m sure. Wish us luck.

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