McBerkoBlog

Bill took today off work, and blew my mind. When I left this morning, the stove was in the entryway. I came home to find our stove in place and working. While I was playing with all the knobs and seeing how high a quick boil gas flame goes (answer: pretty darn high), I noticed a strange noise. It was the dishwasher. A running dishwasher!! Do you understand how fabulous that is?! It has been 6 months since I've heard that noise. And that meant... water is on throughout the kitchen. We have a sink! In the kitchen! A big one! Unlike the little pedestal sink in the downstairs bath, it's big enough to wash dishes in. Of course, screw washing dishes by hand - we have a working dishwasher! Woohoo! If that all wasn't enough, Bill also installed the under- and over-cabinet LED light strips. Nice!! We still have plenty to do here, including installing the tile backsplash, adding baseboards, and trimming out the doors. Cabinet installer also has a few tasks - filling that hole next to...

When we first started designing the kitchen, we figured carrera countertops had too high a risk of staining (especially with us), granite would be too shiny and new looking for our 100-yr old house, but soapstone would be out of reach. Surprisingly, it wasn't much more expensive than granite. Going to the stone yard to pick out our slabs was fun, but made me VERY glad we were not selecting granite. A pro and con of soapstone is that there were only a few types to choose from. It would have taken forever to choose one granite out of hundreds, but one of four soapstone slabs is a much easier choice. Fortunately, we found one that was exactly what I was hoping for - charcoal, no green, nice white veining, perfect leathery texture. Love it! Once installed, step 2 - figuring out how to treat them. Apparently soapstone won't stain, but will darken with use. To keep them from aging unevenly and to get the darker color we wanted, you can rub mineral oil into the countertops. We'd h...

Granted, I'm a bit late on the post, but to record some history, I'll backtrack. Bill and I took a week off work in mid-Sept to finish up a few key projects before the cabinets were professionally installed. The pale yellow beadboard ceiling took 2.5 days to install, way more than we thought. The many recessed lights are great when working in the kitchen, except when cutting beadboard to fit around each. We went through 3 or 4 different yellows for the ceiling before we were happy. We were smart enough to paint it on the ground, at least. The wall color was just as bad - this is gray #3. The tile, a honed carrera marble, took the rest of the week to install. We realized late that the tile company was 60 sq ft short on our tile delivery, but thankfully, the laundry room could wait. At least we finished the floor before our cabinet install deadline. It was close, since our pattern meant that Bill had to cut every single tile for the accent pieces. Props to him for spending 3 days...