Kitchen reno: part 2 of a million

Let's see, where did we leave off? (If you missed it, part 1 is right here.)

Ah yes, we left off before the Great Tile Fiasco of 2018.
I wish I were kidding with that hyperbolic name, but alas, I am not.

Let's break it down into the short (short!) version so you don't get bored.

1. We order tile from Home Depot, and realize it's not all the right color in the middle of installing it.
2. I reorder what the Home Depot rep and I on the phone assume is the right color based on their online listings and pictures.
3. That reorder takes a week to ship all the way from the Northeast, because no one at either Home Depot or the tile company seems to care about their customers all that much (claiming they "can't expedite shipping" blah blah blah).
4. We receive that tile, in two shipments, and IT IS NOT THE RIGHT COLOR. It is way darker than what we have. Commence tears and hair-pulling.
5. I call Home Depot back, trying not to yell, and after literal hours on the phone, they determine that what was sent us the first time around was technically all the same color but different manufactured runs. They're all the same UPC/tile name, but in two different batches so they ended up looking very different.
6. We reorder what I really, really hope is the right color, after the Home Depot rep spends multiple hours on the phone with the tile manufacturer making sure we get all 15 boxes of the right batch this time.
7. They still say they cannot expedite shipping, so we wait ANOTHER week for the tile to get to our house (this is two full weeks after we should have been done with the floor, btw).
8. We receive the tile, and praise Jesus, it is the right color.
9. We install tile and vow to never buy tile online from Home Depot ever again.

end of sob story.
We've mostly put all that stress behind us, but goodness gracious it was exhausting and frustrating and all kinds of stressful.

Luckily we had plenty of other things to keep us busy, but it was annoying to suddenly have to change our plans and do things out of order: mainly, countertops and painting.

Countertops!

Because we are cheap/insane, we decided to make our own countertops. All-in-all, I'm not sure it's been our smartest decision in the whole kitchen renovation, but we did save multiple thousands of dollars doing it this way, so it's a blessing and a curse.

We bought "remnant" DuPont Corian counters from SolidSurface.com (not sponsored, they have no idea who I am, I also don't do sponsored posts, I just want y'all to know). Basically, they're just the exact same materials as Corian countertops you can buy from places like Lowe's or Home Depot, but they didn't meet snuff for exact colors or tiny mistakes, so they're very discounted. We bought 2 30"x144"x0.5" sheets for around $800 total (including shipping) in Glacier White. That same amount of countertop, finished, comes about $40 per square foot installed.

Of course, we did also have to buy the adhesive ($60 per bottle, we bought 2), tips for the adhesive ($10), and sanding pads to finish the top (another $20). So it's definitely not as cheap as laminate, but it's still a deal in comparison. And you also have to, you know, do the actual work, instead of just telling someone what you want and having them come put it in.

Corian is a solid material all the way through, basically like plastic (but it's not plastic), and is pretty similar to wood in how you "treat" it -- David cut ours with a table saw and a circular saw, used a hand-planer on some of the parts, and used a regular orbital sander to finish it.

Since we were doing it ourselves, we were super super careful about measuring a million times before cutting into it, because we did not have any wiggle room to make mistakes. (I think we ended up with about 4 linear feet left over, aka juuuuust enough). The general process was: install a plywood base underneath, cut the Corian, glue it on top, and then attach the front edge.

We started with the smallest piece in case we messed up, and it wasn't too bad! David used a ton of painter's tape to keep the edge aligned/in place after the adhesive went in.

Then we did other stuff, and then went back and did the long piece during a naptime. I was glad we experimented first with the short piece, and then went bigger. It's always nerve-wracking doing something for the first time, but still rather exciting.

After that David started the backsplash, which you can also see in the above photo. David did it all himself, while I corralled the girls one Saturday, and it's beautiful. I think next time we would make sure there was two of us working on it -- not necessarily because of the time save, but so that we could help each other self-correct during the process. All in all it looks amazing! We haven't grouted yet (far down on the list of things we want to do, let's be honest) but we will eventually.

I think David would prefer never to tile again with something this small, even though they did come in square-foot sheets. There were a LOT of tiny cuts. I love it though, so hopefully he'll agree that it was worth it in the end.

I'm starting to not remember what order we did things in, whoops, but David also finished the ceiling somewhere in there -- two coats of paint, finished up the lighting, added our electrical covers for where the vent used to be, etc.

I was in charge of picking paint colors next. We landed on two Joanna Gaines colors, ironically enough: Beautiful Acres for the accent wall (the green one) and Piece of Cake for the rest of the walls.

After agonizing forever, of course, and second-guessing my decision a million times. As happens every time I pick a paint color, cause we've had some flaws in the past. (Don't you love crying Cora in the above photo? So sad she couldn't be involved.)

As I've mentioned on Instagram a couple times, David's still skeptical about the green wall. He waited to tell me until after we'd already picked and painted that apparently he "wouldn't have gone with green" (what the heck man??) so who even KNOWS about that guy. I told him that's fine; if he still doesn't like it we can go back to my original idea of removable wallpaper in a couple months' time. (If you're curious I'm eyeing these two: here and here.)

This VERY flattering picture of David (hahaha, sorry honey) was the day the appliances were delivered. Yay!!! It was great to finally get them here and make it feel a little more like a kitchen again.

Obviously we've done a lot more since then but I'm going to stop here for this post, as it's also plenty long. I'll be posting more later, don't you worry! I can't help but share. ;)