Woo Hoo -- Kitchen Granite Installs Tomorrow!

Look how busy my sweetie has been!  The new sheet rock is up and ready for the backsplash tile, light rail molding has been installed on the bottoms of the existing cabinetry, and the back of the kitchen island has a coat of the elusive Burnt Umber stain that the builder used on the original cabinetry.  It still needs brown glaze and a satin finish oil-based varnish or polyurethane, but I'm very pleased with how well the new carpentry blends in with the old.  As much as this remodeling project has spiraled out of control, at least we were able to keep the existing cabinetry!  Well, mostly we kept the existing cabinetry...

After ordering the new wine fridge (and 50+ bottles of wine to fill it up with), we discovered that the base cabinetry in the butler's pantry was only 20" deep rather than the standard 24" depth that our wine fridge was designed for.  So Bernie spent the better part of a day ripping out the old cabinet, removing the door casing, and building this new 24" deep cabinet that will accommodate the wine fridge on the left, and the copper bar sink on the right.  I need to order a new drawer front and pair of cabinet doors in the same profile as the existing cabinetry, but we don't need to have those before the granite can install.  Tile Collection graciously sent a guy back out to redo the template for this area.  I'm lucky they hadn't cut the stone yet!  Bernie and I were both saying we should have known better.  I think our subconscious wino selves knew the cabinet wasn't deep enough, but suppressed that knowledge in order to get the wine fridge anyway.  I know all about that psychology stuff because I used to watch Frasier before it was cancelled. 

There it is, all stained up with the wine fridge installed.  Bernie had to run water over to this area for the sink as well as for my plumbed espresso machine (the filter is for my espresso machine, too), and I finally convinced him to move an outlet and a light switch so I wouldn't have to reach behind the coffee machines to turn on the undercabinet lighting, and so the machine cords will be as inconspicuous as possible, plugging in directly behind where the machines will sit.  So this "how about we put the coffee machines in the butler's pantry" idea ended up being pretty involved.

Oh, and one more thing: Up until a few days ago, this ugly plastic utility sink lived in my laundry room.  My husband liked to use it for cleaning paint brushes, muddy boots, watering cans, etc.  I never knew what might be splattered in this sink, so I never dared to use it for soaking stains out of the laundry -- this sink probably would have done more harm than good because it was always dirtier than the laundry I wanted to soak in it.  Bernie should really have a work sink out in his garage, and I should have a clean, attractive sink in the laundry room that can safely be used for laundry.  This laundry room is off the kitchen and the door is usually opened, and it has wall cabinets above the machines that match the kitchen cabinetry.  There's no reason the laundry room can't be an attractive extension of the kitchen, especially since there's enough leftover CD Volcano granite from our slabs to do this little countertop in the laundry room, and the not-so-old existing Venetian Bronze kitchen faucet can be reinstalled for the new laundry sink, too.  We're even going to be able to reuse one of the drawer fronts and cabinet doors that came off the dismantled former butler's pantry cabinet.  The only thing I needed to buy was a sink...

Didn't Bernie build me a beautiful laundry cabinet?  Now they can template for the counter top, but the new sink probably won't be here for several weeks because I had to custom order a RED ONE!  :-)

The granite installers are supposed to be here first thing in the morning, and we're finally ready for them!  By this time tomorrow, all of the Baltic Barf countertops will be gone and the CD Volcano will be in its place, hopefully looking as amazing as I have envisioned.  I can't wait!