kitchen projects part 4 (tiling the floor)

we'll say this post was written on friday, march 23. 

before we start, i want to remind you what the floor looked like before...

all right... everyone got those lovely green tiles in their mind? good, let's begin! :)

ashton had thursday and friday (march 15-16) off from work, so his plan was to lay the new tile floor on his days off. so wednesday evening, we went to lowe's and picked out our grout and all of our tiling supplies. on thursday, ashton removed the last few tiles that were left in the kitchen (under the fridge and stove where i couldn't reach) as well as the tiles in our laundry room (connected to the kitchen). he also had to prep the floor with this flexible floor sealant (which you'll see as the pink layer on the floor in this pic). 

thursday night, ashton stayed up until 5am (i guess technically friday morning)  working on the floor. anne did not, she had to work the next day. once he woke up friday, he kept working, and i joined once i got home from work. with the two of us working on this, we were still up until 2am saturday morning. who knew tiling a floor took soo long? 

oh, you noticed the fridge in that last picture? yes, that's because the fridge was currently in our living room. it's amazing how much larger our living room seemed once that was back in the kitchen. :) 

because we used 18" tiles, the smart people at home depot told us to make sure to give the floor plenty of time to dry since the tiles were so big... at least 24 hours, but recommended 48 hours. we finished laying the tiles at 2am saturday morning, and ashton had an 8am sunday (the 18th) flight to canada. soo... we waited to grout until after ashton got back. 

while ashton was gone, his mom, pop and brother stopped by for a night since this was their spring break. (don't worry, they did stop by for another night when ashton was actually home, so they did get to spend time with him as well.) they got to enjoy the experience of having the fridge in the living room. and... the living room was probably worse than when our other guests were there because we had a lot more stuff crammed into the living room. once again, no complaints from any of them! 

ashton flew back in late on wednesday (the 21st), and for some crazy reason, we decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and grout the floor. yet again, we were up until 2am. you would think we would have learned the first time! 

thursday and friday were spent cleaning the floor (which was quite a chore! i recommend to anyone doing their own floor - clean the grout as you go!) and moving everything back in. these were also probably the first days that our house started to feel like an actual house that we could live in. :) 

some pictures of the finished floor with our dining room table and chairs on it... 

next up... painting and decorating! :) my goal is to post it tomorrow, and then you should all be up to date! 

kitchen projects part 3 (backsplash)

let's pretend this post was written on sunday, march 11. :)

monday, march 5, was my first day of work at a medical clinic as a receptionist. between my new job and ashton having a busy and late-night work week, we didn't get a lot done on the weekdays. i did go pick up our backsplash from the fedex place, so that was exciting to actually have these in our possession. we had the idea early on to have a brick backsplash, but i was a little nervous about what they would actually look like in person.

we also started looking at floor tiles, trying to pick out what our future floor was going to look like. we had lots of scenes like this...

so which of those tiles did we pick? none. we ended up checking out a local place here that cut us a great deal on a glazed porcelain tile (18" tiles that ashton appreciated).

friday, ashton got off work a little early, so we headed off to home depot to pick up all of our backsplashing supplies, and ashton got busy. 

my mom was going to be coming in town to spend the night, so my job was to clean the guest bathroom for her. it. was. disgusting. we, obviously, don't use the guest bathroom since we have our own, so we may have forgotten that it had been winterized and was covered (kind of) so it was moldy and gross and disgusting. no fears, i took care of that. (you're welcome, mom!)

saturday, we picked up our floor tiles before i headed to college station for a bridal shower for one of my best friends, tara. (yay weddings!) and while i was at the shower, wonderful ashton continued to work on the backsplash. here's what it looked like before i left...

(isn't he doing a great job?!?)

while i was in college station, i got a text from ashton with a picture showing how much he had done. check it out...

he did such a great job with the bricks! mom came back with me on saturday, and was also a good sport about clearing her own path through the living room. my mom won the award for our first overnight guest. :) 

she left early on sunday, and ashton and i did some all-day shopping for our office desk and bookshelf, as well as 2 more chairs for our kitchen table. that night, we grouted the backsplash. really, ashton grouted, but he did call for reinforcements to wash the grout off the backsplash.

my parents came back in town on monday night and stayed the night, so i was glad that the bricks were finished by the time they came!

stay tuned! next project... tiling the floor! :)

kitchen projects part 2 (removing backsplash, new countertops!)

pretend this blog post was written saturday, march 3. because that's what i'm going to pretend. we have done so many projects during the month of march that it would be a ridiculously long post, so i'm going to break it up, and include some other activities from along the way. i just laughed re-reading the last post that was written on february 22 that says perhaps we'd have a completed kitchen by the weekend of march 2. it's march 30, and we pretty much just finished. we still have a few small projects, but most of it is done.

so first, the weekend of february 24-26, we went camping with a group of friends at pedernales falls. soo much fun!

a great break for us from the kitchen projects, but unfortunately, it also fell during a weekend before a very busy week for us (kitchen-wise).  our countertops were scheduled to be installed thursday, march 1, which means we had to remove the old countertops before then, as well as remove and replace the drywall where the backsplash had been. 

by monday, we had removed all of the backsplash and drywall behind the backsplash, as well as some of the smaller countertops.

on tuesday, i didn't have to work, so i primed the walls around the cabinet area of our kitchen. when ashton got home, he removed the rest of the countertops.

on wednesday, ashton installed the new drywall (he did most of it, i think i helped hold it up while he cut and while he screwed it in) and i worked on pulling the tile floor up. (we somehow failed to get pics of ashton doing any of his projects... sorry!)

on thursday, our sink and countertops were installed!!! yay!

on friday, i came home to a garage floor covered with water and realized our hot water heater was leaking. :( so after our attempts to just fix the heater, we gave in and decided to buy a new one. (the price was ridiculous, but the hot showers are oh so worth it!) ALSO... on friday, i mowed for the first time ever! we had a mini tree farm growing in our front yard, and my sister warned me that the city would fine us for not mowing, so i got busy.

on saturday, ashton's grandparents were our first official house visitors, and they were such good sports about everything! we didn't have water on due to the leaking hot water heater and you still had to crawl over boxes and clear your own path through the living room. luckily for all of us, they wanted to go out to eat for lunch, so the not having water issue wasn't a big deal after all. :)