Nearly Done...

The kitchen is SO close to being done.
The granite/quartz countertops are in and are freaking beautiful, if I may say so.  Can hardly take credit for Mother Nature's work, or the craftsmanship of the guys at the Granite Shop.  The seams in the quartz are barely visible. I wasn't around when they were installed, but Jim captured a few photos.

Sealing the seams in the quartz.  Isn't this cool?

The big granite island top going in. A 3-4 man job lifting it.

We are amazed at the granite island, the color of the stone.  When we saw it on the showroom floor, it looked interesting enough, a big black slab with some cool golden veins running through it.  But it was more dark in there, and you're real close to the slab looking at it.  You can't really visualize what it'll look like in your kitchen.

Black Taurus granite island in place!

But now that it's in place, and it's lit up like a senior citizen's birthday cake, the COLORS that come out of it -- reds and golds and grays and the little flecks of mica or whatever -- so amazing.
It's like the rocks on the shores of Superior -- when you see them in the water, they're all polished and shiny, so you take one home (eep). But in your pocket it gets all gray and dull and has none of the luster it did in its native home.  Lesson learned, leave it there.
Unless you've paid a pretty penny for granite countertops, in which case, it's staying in my kitchen.

The appliances are all in too, the gorgeous Thermador gas cooktop, the fridge -- it's good to feel like this is a kitchen again!

Siding had to be moved from back of fireplace to cover old window in pantry.
And when we changed the back door to a single, that siding had to be fixed up too.
Before...

...and After! A season of weather and sun will hide the tiny color difference.

The subway tiles and the black glass.
Black glass will run higher up the wall, but you get the idea.

The backsplash is supposed to get done this week, which will be white textured subway tile, with a strip of black glass running through it for a classy accent, bringing in the color of the dark granite island.  We are hoping to put up a classy "J & C" on the wall behind the stove at some point.  We are terrified to put knives on the wall magnet for fear of messing up the lines...but we may get over that.  In the meantime, I'm really liking my drawer block for knives.

Paper still on the floor to protect it during the last work.
Lookit that light, and the under-cabinet lights aren't on here!

And as to lit up like a senior citizen's birthday cake, our kitchen surely is.  We watched/helped the electrician put in all the major lighting on Friday night -- sweet guy was here till late.  We baked up a frozen pizza and he enjoyed a slice with us.  We joke that maybe there's "too much" light?  We have under-cabinet lights, canisters in the ceiling, one semi-surface light near the fridge, and four shiny pendants that light up the island.  All LED, some are dimmable, and others will be so later on.  But it's really a thing of beauty to have so much light.  At worst, we can learn to wear sunglasses if we find it too blinding...

This oven is super sweet -- my "baking nook"

The pantry and landing area

We spent most of Sunday moving back in, agonizing over what utensil or equipment should go where. It was a good thing to do on an otherwise dreary day.  

I didn't mention quite how fancy our new oven is.  We generally poo-poo and eschew this whole IoT (Internet of Things) idea -- who needs a web-enabled refrigerator (unless it could tell you whether you have parsley in there, and assess its freshness)? Well, apparently, we do, or at least we have an Internet-enabled oven now.  The GE Profile has the ability to be turned on remotely, through an app on our phones.  Last night though, we manually set the oven to preheat to 450 F at 8 p.m.  Cool delay start feature.  But when it's preheated, the oven sends us a notification on our phone: "Your Oven's Preheat is Complete."  A bit over the top, but we can also see the usefulness of such features.  One caveat is that you have to hit a Remote Enable button on the oven in order to preheat it remotely, and that making virtually any change automatically de-activates the Enable.  Hrmmm.

So after choir rehearsal, we made our first official "real" Julia Child cornmeal-dough pizza.  Jim caught some lousy knife technique on film; do as I say, kiddos, not as I do.  I should be pinching that blade...and so should you.

I asked Jim yesterday if it was starting to feel like "home." He said no, that it was still lacking the memories that need to be in place to make it feel like home.  It's still kinda hard to believe that we actually live in this beautiful space! But it's really starting to feel like OUR kitchen, and we are over the moon.