I’m sitting in the Vision Therapy office today. We have two children receiving therapy right now and life is full. This is the first week I’ve found a wifi signal at the office, and am using some of this hurry up and wait time to write to you.
While I am here watching Grant play with the office toys, the plumber is at my house :). He’s installing a kitchen sink, a dishwasher, and a couple of toilets. I’m beyond excited. And a little scared. When I didn’t have anything to work with in the kitchen, I could be less than amazing and have a good excuse. Now that I’ll have a sink again…it’s time to step up my game. Maybe I won’t feel like being amazing anyway. I think I’m ok with that. If my family gets basic healthy food and the kitchen is mostly clean…that can be it’s own kind of amazing.
Last night we had a tiny birthday party for our friend, who is staying with us for a short time while she makes some transitions in her life. It was a total blast. Just silly fun around the table with some friends. And then she came with me to ballet class. It’s like having a sister for reals, and the kids adore her. We have the same maiden name, and even though we aren’t technically related….I can pretend.
So this kitchen thing is scary. We dreamed about it for over a year before digging into the process and then 9 months later are finally coming near the end. I wanted it to be perfect, but really in life what is? Our new floor is already scratched, some areas pretty badly. The cabinets already have dings and blemishes from use. I had in my mind that one day I would have a brand new kitchen all finished and in that moment every piece of it would be new and perfect. The reality is, We’ve been working at it and living in it for 9 months. We have 6 kids. My family is better than a perfect kitchen any day. It’s good for me to stop and remember that sometimes, because when I forget I enter freak out mode.
Freak out mode is when I wail that my floor scratches aren’t repairable because a prefinished floor has a finish that goes an 1/8th inch deep and nothing sticks to it (like stain or repair crayon.) It’s when I complain that the cabinet company went down in quality, so our new cabinets aren’t what we expected or thought we paid for. It’s when I stress because my counters turned out splotchy and I realize that it’s likely that I’ll still have these countertops when I’m a grandma. In the amount of time it would take me to save up for granite, I’ll need to put a couple of kids through college, plan a wedding, and hope that grandbabies will soon follow. To be honest, all that stuff is more important to me than a perfect kitchen.
Rachel told me the counters looked great when I wasn’t sure. “It’s the perfect color,” she said. “Maybe try a second coat.” I just needed to hear some validation for my choice to be able to relax inside and go with it. Sherry and John over at Young House Love did a similar color in their countertop refresh yesterday, but theirs is a concrete overlay. Which looked like a LOT more work than what we did. I love the look in their kitchen. It made me feel better to see they had a backsplash too. After I saw Carmella’s backsplashless countertops and undermount sink, I totally wished I had held out for that. Just the discussion about it turned very LOUD, since DH was convinced both were impossible. In the end, it was more important to remove some stress from DH’s shoulders than to fight to get exactly what I wanted.
A second coat on the counters made things better, but I’ll have to show you that tomorrow 🙂
It’s looking good Angela. However realistically those counter tops are going to take a severe beating. Tin cans, heat, just putting the shopping down dented mine and they were sold oak. In the future perhaps try and squirrel away some funds for a stone composite, it’s more resilient than granite. I eventually got Caesar stone. Doesn’t dent, doesn’t stain and is totally heat proof 10 years later.
Sorry to be a kill joy. You are not alone. Every time I’ve finished a kitchen I’ve realised the one (or two) things I chose wrongly.
Jane, You’re right. The plumbers already scratched the finish all up since the counters weren’t quite cured before they came. But I’m facing the truth that it may not be possible to save for granite and meet the needs of my kids. If I have to choose, I’d choose them any day.
Great thoughts, Angela! I had a similar experience when we did our kitchen/dining room floors. the ceramic tiles did NOT turn out even at all ~ not nice and flat the way they’re supposed to be. You can feel them as you walk across the floow. The only way to fix them would be to break it all up and start over (not happening b/c we hired a family friend to do the work.)
So every day I walk on them gives me opportunity to be bitter, or to stand back and look at the whole picture. Because just looking across at the whole kitchen ~~ it’s beautiful!
Thanks for the reminder you gave me!!!
Thank you for this. We are living through a 1/2 of the house gut and I have asked hubby for lots of fun and cool finishing touches. Right now, paying cash as we go along, those fun closet organizers are a no. I need to learn to be thankful that all 3 kids will no longer be sharing one room. I need to be okay with living with subfloors for a while. It will be okay, or at least you say it will!
Rebecca, It will be ok. I promise. Hugs to you.
Okay, I was pretty enthralled by Young House Love’s counter tops, too. The thing is, if your counters don’t turn out the way you had hoped, you could actually do that and it appeared that it was really economical (although a lot of work and very messy). However, from what I can see, your kitchen is looking absolutely beautiful! If your floors are like mine, just remember you can replace individual planks if needed, but I suspect that only you would be able to identify the scratches. I don’t think either you or I would want to live in a perfect house, because who could be there with you? 🙂 I’ll take my family over perfection every single time and I know you would too.
Sheila, that’s a great idea. I love how forgiving this decision is. We haven’t spent a lot on what we have and if after a while they need refinishing, we’ve still got choices.
Angela, your kitchen is looking so good! I hadn’t had a chance to see any progress since there was still nothing yet to see. This is a process, as you well know. We also chose to pay as we went, so had to make sacrifices (still are in some areas), in order to achieve the bigger picture. I understand the desire to walk into a finished space and be able to revel in the perfection. That all at once, finished feeling didn’t happen for me either, it was the tiny victories that I learned to savor as each phase became complete. Your countertops are a small part of your big, blessed life. And the backsplash is just fine 🙂
And? Email me if I can be of any help
Thank you, Carmella. You are so sweet! I’m feeling better about everything. The imperfection has to be part of the charm. Once I get everything organized it’s going to be even better. When the kids found out we had a dishwasher this morning they jumped and down and cheered like a bunch of housewives–priceless. (And I’m secretly hoping that dark wax might do something about the floor scratches–I’m going to test in a corner anyway.)
Backsplashes are great! its fine.
Also, I 2nd – don’t go for Granite unless you can deal w/ the maintenance. a solid surface like Corian may be an option.
I’m saving to buy new toilets – what kind did u get?
Nikki, We had granite before and loved it. The maintenance wasn’t bad at all. Corian is so much more expensive for something “fake” that I’ve never considered it long. It is pretty though. We bought the cheapest toilets from Home Depot. They come in two pieces sold separately. We used them at our last house and knew they worked well. Something had changed though and the flapper system malfunctioned from the start. Our plumber had a replacement flapper set in his truck and fixed it right as rain for little money. DH put our toilets in our last house himself and did fine, but since the plumber was already here running new water lines for the kitchen we asked him to take care of the toilet installation too.
I think you are doing a fantastic job with your kitchen. My husband has been following your progress with me. My husband heard about something on the radio he wanted me to share with you. Daich coatings are something of a spread on rock coating. You’ll have to check it out to see. The counters on their website look fantastic. http://www.daichcoatings.com/daich-diy-homepage.html
Elizabeth, I’ll go check it out. Thanks for the tip and the encouragement 🙂