The grout has been applied to the tiles, so we are showing you some pictures of the final look. We had a bit of a head scratcher on the color of the grout we’d use, and picked this one because it was light enough without being distracting, and helped tie into the colors of the cabinets, countertop and wall. What do you think?
We stopped home to get a look. That’s a lot of tile. The color is aggressively neutral and the temporary red tabs sure throw off the overall effect. I love the texture of the glass under the light of the hood, and look forward to seeing how it looks when we have under cabinet lights everywhere and there is natural sunlight in the room.
I am happy with them, but we’ve got to decorate that room.
Tonight we buy grout.
The rest of the world calls it Wednesday, but today is the day we’ve been waiting a long while for. Many readers may remember our trips around suburbia to find the tiles we liked, from Oceanside Glasstile. We found them, ordered them, and had them shipped to Boston from California. We picked them up last week, and today the tilers are installing them.
We did have a few issues with the placement of switches and outlets near the edge of counters and/or cabinets. These involved some quick decisions about where the tiles should end: before or after the switch plate. I know we’ll love the look when it’s finished, but it does make me wish we’d had everyone in the room when we started, knowing what we do now.
Pictures coming tonight of the new backsplash!
Where we’ve been:
The week following the installation of the countertop and our first joyous cooked meals, loads of laundry, and washed dishes in the kitchen, we went to Cape Cod for a vacation. Even though we surely know all of our readers, I am too conservative to broadcast over the Internet that our house is going to be empty and free for the taking. Hence the silence.
The following week, our contractor took his vacation, as we waited for the tiles to come in from the West Coast. Michael, the electrician, stopped by to do some work, but we had nothing new and dramatic to report.
This should be the final week of the project, and everyone involved would like it to be so. This morning, the floor people appeared to apply the second and final finish. Our tiler should arrive tomorrow to put up the backsplash, a task of no small concern to me because glass tile can be difficult and there will be cutting of glass tiles and wood trim to make it work. Our outlets and switches need to be installed. Greg has to make a final decision about the cat 5 wire which now links our kitchen to the basement space immediately below it, and not to our cable.
And then that’s it.
This is the week we’ve all been waiting for. All of us, even the cats. This week we get a working kitchen back. No more dishes in the bathtub, no more laundry in our tenant’s washer/dryer. No more hotplate cooking. Many many pictures to follow this week.
Wednesday: Countertops are installed in the morning.
Thursday: Sink installed. Dishwasher and Washing machine hooked up to water supply. Fridge water hooked up. Stove installed. Radiator installed.
Friday: All door handles & pulls finished. Glass shelves installed.
The tiles, alas, will not arrive for another week to week and a half, while either we or our contractor is on vacation. (I just called this morning, and they said a 3-3.5 week turn around)
Our countertop template was done today, and I asked the guy when we’d be ready to put it in. “It usually takes about two weeks. Call us Monday or Tuesday and we’ll have an exact date.” TWO WEEKS? I had always heard one week. Our tiles have also been ordered, and those will be a two week wait. Plus, they’re so heavy, they’re coming by freight truck from somewhere in southern California or Mexico. Apparently, UPS “throws boxes” and we don’t want boxes of glass thrown around.
The countertop template is done with corrugated plastic strips, built out into grids with notes and measurements on them so they can cut the countertops easily from them.
In the mean time, Mark and I have been looking at cabinet hardware and anticipating the installation of our appliances. Billy had said the plumber and electrician would be back once the countertop was in, so everything could be done at once, but that’s a long way away, now. I guess my dreams of getting out of our makeshift kitchen and cooking on a real stove are dashed again.
Today, I made pancakes in the electric frying pan. It’s basically my way of making sure Mark is going to be psyched for whatever the world throws at him. Something about chocolate chips, bananas, and maple syrup does the trick. I had also painted a big splotch of our winning color on the wall, and we decided to go for it. Then I called Billy, our contractor, to see what was up.
He’s coming Monday to install the cabinets. We could have the countertops measured Tuesday, and have the appliances come Wednesday. You mean…. I could cook something on Wednesday for dinner? And wash dishes? And clothes?? Far out! A quick call to Yale Appliance. 
They should have everything for us Wednesday, except maybe the dryer and fridge. Okay. I can live with that.
Then we were off. Up to North Reading to National Tile, where Karen, after securing an invitation to our eventual kitchen unveiling party, agreed to help us pick out tiles for our feature area, gave us more samples, and sent us on our way. Jenn called us and said their templaters could come Thursday. That works. We went to Benjamin Moore, got loads of Primer and Paint, and headed home to prime. Four to five hours later, the first coat is up on top of the primer, and we did a decent job. A few places we need to touch up, but it’s good. Another coat goes up tomorrow after breakfast (We’re going to Sound Bites, so I’m not cooking!) and then it’s off to get sink and faucet.
One of the things we quickly learned when starting on this project is that the major dealers of design, fixtures, cabinets, etc. are not located near the city center, like we are. We find ourselves putting a lot of miles on our cars going to towns we knew existed, but had never really driven to. These include Woburn (pronounced Woo-burn for those who don’t know), North Andover and North Reading, and parts of Dorchester. Technically, Dorchester is part of Boston, but it’s a lot further from downtown than we are, and if you don’t know the roads, it’s hard to navigate. Plus, off ramps and on ramps don’t always come in pairs, so we find ourselves searching for the way home.
Sometimes, we’ve been lucky, seeing a sign that points us in the right direction, but Boston isn’t known for its good signage. More often, we play “Road Rally” with a driver and navigator, pouring over very detailed maps in search of the easiest route. We did have an “A ha!” moment when traveling in Woburn, where we able to connect the dots between two worlds we did know because the city is bordered by two big highways.
Our tiles aren’t an in-stock item, so we’ll be off to the Expo again to look at them with our paint book and figure out which direction we should go with that. We’ve got lots of paint stores in Somerville. What’s that say about our part of the world?
I located some photos of Cambria Windsor countertops to provide some context for our decision.
In this picture, the cabinets have a lightness comparable to honey spice, but aren’t the same tone. Honey spice has more gold. They have stainless appliances (yes), beige tiles (yes), and a hardwood floor (yes…) that is darker and redder than ours (no.) I don’t know what you’d call their choice of paint–dark mustard?–but it’s not quite what we’re looking for.
The Cambria website has a spectacular image of a much larger kitchen. Here, the cabinets are darker, but the hue is closer. The tiles are vaguely comparable to ours in shine and color. They downplayed the stainless steel by paneling their fridge, and their cabinet doors are more traditional than ours. Their paint is a very pale, neutral peach.
Hrm.
Always a good thing when you’re spending this much money.
This New York Times article on how to renovate your kitchen for resale caught me eye, and it says what I’ve been hearing from the few friends and family members who’ve responded to our ideas for glass tiles. The fact it pretty explicitly calls out colored glass tiles for obsolescence gives me pause. I absolutely, completely stand by the idea of the 4×4 field tiles, but am getting cold feet about a bold decorative element that would be very hard to remove in the future.
I’m not worried about resale because we have every intention of staying in this house at least until the Green Line arrives (current date: 2014) and it has everything we want or need: sufficient space for two of us, a good layout, great sunlight, a yard, and off-street parking in a decent neighborhood with very good access to Boston. We’re designing for us, and the kitchen will date regardless. I know resale is always a possibility, but Prospect Hill is not Manhattan, and it’s possible to overthink what the future market will demand or live with. I know what we lived with when we bought.
However, where I stand now is that I feel this is going to have to be a feature I’m going to really love and strongly regret omitting in favor of neutral beige tiles in order to proceed. I don’t understate this factor. I’m also considering that the feature is limited to one spot and not all that crazy.
We have a while to go before ordering tiles; it’s one of the last pieces of the puzzle. I see more trips to Home Expo in our future.
P.S. Mom, don’t think you’ve won 100% on this one. The article recommends hardwood floors.
