Finishing touches

All that is left in the kitchen are some finishing touches. The kickplates and crown moulding need to be fully installed, and some cabinet hardware remains to be installed.

But, we are inching toward the finish line.

The bulkhead above the breakfast bar is complete and has been painted. You can see that the ceiling still needs a bit of sanding, as well as some way to make the transition to the stipple ceiling in the dining room a bit smoother.



The final remaining cabinet, to the right of the microwave, has been installed.



And the front entryway and stairway have been painted.







In other news, Rob had a birthday.



Luckily, Alistair and Patrick were on hand to help him blow out his candles.





Work on the will be taking on a slow pace for the next few weeks as we try to enjoy what little summer is left, so updates won't be terribly frequent. We will update when there is news to report, though, fear not!

Grout and Trim

The backsplash is now officially complete, having been grouted and cleaned.

Here is the grouting in progress.







And here is the finished product.





As well, trim has been added to the cabinets to hide the bottoms.



All that is left is painting, kickplates, and the remaining cabinet hardware and we'll be able to call the kitchen complete. Hats off to Rob, he has worked hard and it looks great!

Backsplash and Baseboards and Trim, oh my!

After a couple of weeks of not-much-work, we've had a week of much-work. Thanks to a visit from Rob's Dad and a holiday long weekend we've made some incredible progress. There is still a lot of finishing work to be done, but here's where we are at.

Rob and his Dad formed a two man team and made short work of the very difficult backsplash. Why so difficult? It was a very intricate tile pattern, and almost entirely made up of custom cuts due to windows and corners and outlets.

The Job in its early stages:





The full wall done:



Tile set, and ready for grout (which will take place today and tomorrow):





Close up:





Once the backsplash was tiled, they got to work on the baseboards.

Rob's Dad operating the saw.



The compressor-nailer thingy that scares me.



And the installed baseboards. There is still some detail work to be completed around the door trim in rooms upstairs, and the baseboards will all need to be caulked and painted before we can move this job to the "Completed" column.







The baseboards look great, and really make the rooms look much more finished. Once the backsplash tile is grouted there is just some painting, trim, and kickplates to complete the job. A stark contrast to the nearly year long adventure of our last kitchen reno, to be sure.

In other news, I have a fairly obvious baby-bump at 17 weeks, and Patrick turned 3.5. We had a party to celebrate this momentous occasion (the 3.5 birthday, that is, not the baby bump, hee).