It’s a frickin’ miracle. I was wondering if the day would come and it finally has. We have tile and grout. The part I was most excited about has come almost 5 months after beginning the project. I really love the way British decorating magazines (my favorite) show small kitchens with unique touches, in particular custom tile. The british really have a love for great tile design — and I thank them for all their ideas and inspiration. Anyway, we now have grout along with the tiles and I couldn’t be happier (although for some reason on the darker blue tiles you can see the mesh backing that is standard with mosaic tiles…I have no idea why that’s the only color that has that effect, but it’s minor overall).

The tile guy comes back tomorrow to seal the grout.

As you can see in the pictures we still have a few things left…but being so near the end is really going to motivate us! I can’t wait to take the final pictures, but it’ll probably be a month. Maybe two because my mom is making Roman blinds for the bump out windows and the fabric she ordered is on backorder.

• Finish “sculpting” and painting the window trim.
• Finish caulking and painting the baseboards.
• Put in the faucet, water purifier, and garbage disposal.
• Put up the range vent hood.
• Put back all the electrical switches and outlets along with their plates.
• Get my supervisor at work to saw the pantry endpanel down to size (he has a table saw and we don’t).
• Get scribe molding from Home Depot to put around base ends.
• Get Roman blinds from mom.
• Figure out what happened to the cafe shutter blind I ordered online - 7 weeks ago! for the sink window.
• Make small shelf and hang from ceiling over sink by two chains on the side and plant herbs to put on shelf and hide ugly view.
• Get stainless steel stove - which probably won’t happen for a year ‘cause we’re out of money and need to save for the art studio we want to put in the backyard next year.
• Touch up paint job in the kitchen.
• Have a party to celebrate our kitchen!!