Thanks to everyone for your support/kind words/stories after yesterday's post about Lulu and Mel's tumor removal surgeries. It helped quite a bit. We're hopeful all will go well this Friday, and we'll surely keep you all posted, especially with any funny "collar of shame" photos we might take. 

So how's the kitchen project coming, anyway? Work continued last night into the wee hours of the morning, in a desperate attempt to complete our kitchen counter top installation. It's amazing how cranky one might get after four days without water on the first floor of one's home. Why don't we have water, you might wonder? On Saturday morning we officially cut off the water, in order to remove the sink and old counter tops from the kitchen. 

Although we could, in theory, have taken the dirty dishes up to the guest bathroom shower, we instead opted to let them pile up on the stove, in a disgusting I-want-to-apply-to-be-on-Hoarders move. The dirty dishes, coupled with the wide array of tools and the fact we had to empty all the lower kitchen cabinets and stash those items in the sun porch, was absolutely driving me insane. You might say we've been eating, sleeping, dreaming, and breathing all things kitchen project this week. In fact, on a personal note, I have to share this hilarious email I received from Alex yesterday, when I was pestering him about what we would be accomplishing last night. At first I saw all of the steps and thought, OMG, then I kept reading. He can be a funny one. Apparently, when you're a DIY couple, these are the sorts of email exchanges you tend to have.

I suppose that after 17 years together, Alex and I know each other to a tee. And as funny as this email was, it's pretty much a play by play of how we renovate. Lots of hard work, a few "intense discussions," and ultimately a great end result.

So roughly following the above email, we pushed on, and nearing midnight, we were still making ear piercing cuts with the router in order to cut the hole in the butcher block for the sink. It lasted longer, sounded louder, and went on later than we anticipated or realized. I think we might be nominated for worst neighbor of the year award. (Let's just say an apology email for the noise was sent to our neighbor around midnight. Ugh, we were totally those people last night.) 

A bit of cranky banter, a lot of hard work, and a room covered in saw dust later and I'm proud to announce we have this.

Yep, there she is in all her glory -- a functioning kitchen sink!

We even managed to install two of the bin pulls on the new cabinets for the wine bar while we were waiting for wood filler to dry. 

Just don't ask me how I inadvertently ordered two less pulls than we need. So we're still waiting on the delivery of the missing IKEA cabinet parts as well as the two final pulls before we can call this baby done. 

But back to the kitchen sink. Very early this morning we woke up to do the final sand, and then Alex ran a bead of silicone caulk around the perimeter of the sink while I continued cleaning up the saw dust mess from last night.

We'll give the caulk all day to cure so that we can start applying our first coat of mineral oil to the counters tonight. We're exhausted, but are elated by our progress. We'll obviously be talking way more in depth and showing more photos on all of these items later, but with all of the work on the kitchen we're having a hard time finding time to write blog posts.

Next up...the tile back splash! The jury's still out on what style we're going to do, and I'd be lying if I said I'm not considering returning our 3" x 6" tile in exchange for the mini running bond. I'm quite conflicted on this item. Oh, and let's not forget custom shelves for over the wine bar, window treatments for the sun porch, a new shoe storage solution, finish the hardware on the wine bar, find and buy seating for the sun porch, artwork...well, you get the gist. We've made a ton of progress but we still have a long way to go. I'm just glad we have water back in time for my cousin's arrival on Thursday night. Phew! What a temporary solution!

What were you up to last night? Were you alienating your neighbors while frantically trying to get your house back in working order? Maybe instead you had a relaxing night with your family? Were you tackling any DIY projects of your own? I'd love to hear how your night stacked up.