New project(s)! Hooray for homeownin'

We have decided that the kitchen countertops are due to be replaced. They're the only part of the main floor of our house that look really cheap. Think apartment countertops. Functional, but obviously installed with no thought for aesthetics or longevity. They're scratched and stained and really just ready to go. So last weekend we started painting the kids' bathroom. A logical first step in refinishing the kitchen.

See, the kitchen is a big part of the ground floor, and we want the counters to look great when complete. Steph had the great idea* that we should maybe try to learn tiling skillz on an area of the house that wasn't quite as visible, such as the kids' bathroom. In the garage was a stack of tiles that matched the ones installed in the master bathroom upstairs, so it seemed like an easy thing to throw those on the floor, learn some things, and move on to the kitchen in June when the kids are in Illinois w/ their dad for 10 days. But first, the color of the kids' bathroom needed work. The prior homeowners must have let the 4 year old girl pick the color, because it was a hideous pastel yellow. Since the floors were about to be redone, it was a great time to paint with no concern for the trim or the floor, both of which were being trashed anyway.

While picking the color, I measured the floor and realized we were 4 tiles short of having enough materials. 4 tiles short of a tile variety that has been discontinued by the manufacturer and is no longer carried by the tile place down the road where our predecessors purchased it. So we have now purchased all new tile for the bathroom and a nice coordinating paint color (kind of a light blueish-grey) which is now almost completely finished.

Tomorrow I get to go tool shopping to expand my collection quite a bit, Thursday my father-in-law is in town and will help me pull out the toilet, prep the floor, and figure out layout, and I should be tiling sometime this weekend or early next week. If all goes well we'll have new kitchen counters by July!


*not sarcasm