Kitchen Remodel - Merry Christmas to us

Around the end of October Joe asked me what our "winter" project should be. After a trip to Lowes for a new leaf vac/blower, we stumbled into their counter top section and we decided the project could be a small update to our kitchen.

For those of you were around when we bought the house, you know that we've already done a little updating in regards to appliances and paint. For those of you who never had the joy of seeing the kitchen we bought, have a looksey:

Excuse the mess, it was moving day. Original kitchen in May '07

May '07

As you can see, we right away went to work updating the paint, appliances and backsplash.

The toaster oven is hiding a very uneven corner of the counter

However, I must confess that a big part of me has fallen in love with my yellow countertops. If they would have been in better shap and actually even (it's amazing what a toaster oven can hide) I would have kept them.
About  about month ago we scrubbed our cabinets and put on new hardware. The next weekend Joe spent a Friday night installing one piece of the counter top that we didn't have to special order while I went out for a date with my friend Carrie. I came home that evening and was so impressed with my hubby.

New counter Joe did all  by himself!

What our kitchen had looked like for about a month before yesterday

The next morning we went to Menards and bought a new ceiling fan/light fixture (I swear we were taking our lives in our own hands every time we turned the previous ceiling fan on. I thought it would fall out of the ceiling). Joe promptly installed that and I even helped a little bit. The true test came when it was time to turn on and Joe pulled the cord and nothing. I quickly yelled from the couch to turn the light switch on the wall on and sure enough it worked.

What's left? Well the rest of the counter, the new sink and garbage disposal needs to be installed. That happened yesterday thanks to our friends Linda and Jerry. Thanks to Linda who was kind enough to tell us that "Jerry wouldn't have a problem helping" and thanks to Jerry for spending all day yesterday with us (literally from 9:00 am until about 6:30 pm). To thank Jerry, we gave him a gift certificate to the 5-8, told him that he is to call us first if he ever needs help with something and he is entitled to free hair cuts for life from yours truly.

Here are lots of  pictures from yesterday. THANK YOU JERRY AND JOE!!!

Before (with cabinets cleaned out)

No sink

No counter

so close to being done...

New sink

All done

It's now even and we don't need the toaster oven to hide anything