California 2 Puerto Rico

Our kitchen is finally fully functional! Here is Stefan cooking lasagna on his birthday (12/18):

The kitchen isn’t quite finished, but it works, so we are happy :). To finish the kitchen, this is what needs to get done:

~ Cabinet doors hung
~ Pantry/wine refrigerator/wetbar area to be built and installed
~ Breakfast bar to be built and installed
~ Minor lighting work (under cabinet lights and one track light)
~ Water purifier installed (we have to have someone cut a hole in the granite. Oops!)
~ Box in over sink lights

Popularity: 29% [?]

When we first picked out the colors for the house (seems like months ago…wait, it may have been) we were still staring at drywall (actually, 5/8’s fire resistant greenboard) trying to imagine what the house would look like when it was done…which helped us enough to pick out the paint colors. I really think we did a great job with picking out all of the colors except for one, the kitchen. Once we were done painting it, it looked pretty much exactly the same as the greenboard that we just finished painting on three layers of base coat to make white!

Today, Mark came by and painted the entire kitchen white. Well, it is some fancy name for white…antique white, or albatross or something. I was sure to pick out the correct color white from our pile of new paint bucket cans (similar to college pyramids of Old Milwaukee beer cans) because we also bought three shades of grey for my office and have a white for summers office and a bunch of other colors and concrete sealers for downstairs. Seems like a small time mistake, but painting a room the wrong color really sucks.

Painting the kitchen…AGAIN

Popularity: 15% [?]

I know, I know! We haven’t been posting our progress on the blog as much as we used to. Summer and I have both been super busy and have been trying to make an effort to keep everyone updated…so here’s an update.

Yesterday, one of the American plumbers that has lived down here since 1987 came to the house and started installing our reverse osmosis water filtration system, faucet and garbage disposal. It should be done today which will give us a fully functioning kitchen. Way better than our old one on the back porch.

Jamie and Brian both brought down some fresh tastykakes for us to stock our kitchen with. I don’t think they are going to last too long

Popularity: 19% [?]

Today was a huge day. Not only did we pour the cement slab in the back and mow the lawn, we also had the granite countertops in the kitchen installed:

After riding the decision merry-go-round, Stefan and I purchased our granite counter tops for the Home Depot in Mayaguez (cost was $4500). Home Depot told us that it would take 5 - 6 weeks to have the counters installed, but it only took 2 weeks!

I really, really, really like the way they came out too. The kitchen counters are now a tan/brown/black tiger stripe looking granite. I think it pulls together the stainless/black appliances and mahogony cabinets perfectly.

Now we just have to get that ugly green off the walls.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Stefan and I have spent a lot of time trying to pick out our counter tops for the kitchen. First we wanted granite, but the only granite we liked was the the most expensive ($75 per sq ft) and we didn’t really like it THAT much. Stefan went to the quarry to check out what it would look like as a slab and we decided we wern’t excited enough to spend that much on it. SO, we got to doing some research and Stefan decided that he liked Silestone. I checked out the Silestone at Home Depot in San Diego and, quite honestly, I didn’t love it. My mom suggested marble since she has marble countertops, but Stefan had made up his mind and wanted the Silestone. That was fine with me because it was cheaper then the granite and the kitchen is Stefans deal, so whatever he wants in there is muy bueno.

Stefan and I went to Home Depot in Mayaguez to place our order for the Silestone. And we ended up buying a light brown tiger stripey granite. Haha.

Who wants a ride on the decision making merry-go-round/?!

Popularity: 19% [?]

After quite a few tests of the grout in the kitchen, we went with an Antique White Non-Sanded Grout. Gino grouted all of the seams and little cracks yesterday…and this morning I am sponging the entire floor tile by tile. I am using two buckets of water and one sponge to clean the thin film of grout from the tile surface…one dirty water bucket that I use to dip the sponge into after wiping one tile and then the smaller bucket to dampen the sponge in clean water so I can get started on the next tile with some relatively clean water (I breaded chicken in a similar fashion when I was a line cook….clean hand…dirty hand).

Here are some pictures after one round of sponging. It will probably take three meticulous passes with the sponge to get the grout residue off of the marble before we are able to seal it with the 511 Impregnator. It took me about 40 minutes to go tile by tile…and my back is feeling real nice. It really makes me appreciate the hard work Gino has put in to get the floor completely flat and the butt joints to line up so well.

It’s hard to see the film from this angle, but it’s there

You can see the thin film from this angle

Popularity: 24% [?]

We started working on the kitchen floor yesterday. We are butt jointing all of the tiles (no gap) which makes it a more difficult task as opposed to having a gap between each seem that would allow you to fudge the measurements a bit.

After measuring the entire room, determining the center point and determining which part of the room is going to be the focal point, we laid out the tiles so that all of the cuts would be against the wall on the right and or under the cabinets once they are completely installed. The entrance has full tiles as will the main work area of the kitchen. The first few rows of marble that were installed need to sit for 48 hours to completely cure before they start making cuts and laying the sides. They’ll need to walk on them which means they need to be completely set and dry.

The factory cuts of the marble are not perfect, some of them are a little bit thicker at one end vs the other and some of the edges have tiny areas that look beveled. I don’t know if that is how all marble is, or if that is a bi-product of buying marble in Puerto Rico. There are going to be some small gaps that we’ll have to fill in with a grout at the end of the day. Gino suggested we grind up broken pieces of the marble to create a grout that matches color perfectly. We’ll see…do any of you have experience with a decision like this?

Here are some pictures of the progress:

Popularity: 14% [?]

Gino started laying the marble in the kitchen yesterday. He checked the level of the floor and thought it looked good so he started setting our 24 inch tiles. He set 3 of them, and on his fourth he had a hard time getting the joints to line up (Butt Joint) and he decided to tear up the three tiles he already set (it took him 2 hours) and to put down a floor leveler to make his job easier down the line.

I went to the Home Depot and bought UltraPlan, another Mapei product. UltraPlan is a high performance, quick setting, self-leveling underlayment for tile floors. The purpose of it is to level the floors to make butt jointing tile much easier and less time consuming. If the floor isn’t even after we lay the tile, marble tile can break. We used up 4 bags ($40 a bag) to level the floor in the kitchen.

This morning, we went back to home depot, bought a new 1/2 inch drill to replace the one that burnt out yesterday (i also bough it yesterday..so I exchanged the busted one for a new one), picked up 14 bags of Marmolina to plaster the walls (we should finish up this afternoon) and a new trow to apply the UltraPlex 2 marble grout / thinset.

The twins are supposed to show back up today at 2:30 to finish up with the wall plastering downstairs…it took about a week and a half. They said 4 days. I am really glad Summer and I discussed this one ahead of time and decided to pay them for the entire job (payment at the completion of the job) as opposed to the per day charge they suggested.

Popularity: 22% [?]

I have been doing some research on the colors of and the cost of SileStone as opposed to using Granite. I am really on the fence here, but I do like how durable the surface is and we have many more options as far as patterns and colors go. Robin made a comment on my last post saying that they are very good if you “really cook in your kitchen”. I do like to cook, especially for special occasions like Mothers Day.

Here is what I have come up with:

Our online SileStone Estimate

This is Minerva Cream SileStone

Waterfall Edge for countertops…I like this one

What do you think? Will it be too much white in the kitchen? Keep in mind we have dark wood ceilings, dark wood window trim and our mahogany cabinets are going to be dark. I like the idea of a kitchen that has cleanable surfaces that are white, for some reason it feels more sterile to me…and that is good when you are in the kitchen.

Popularity: 13% [?]