A New Kitchen!

The final touch to a new kitchen, that is. Which, of course, makes it that much more glorious! :-)

I am ALL FOR this resurfacing thing. At least, I think I am. If it keeps looking good like they say it will, I'm all for it! The two most wonderful things about it are the price (soooooooooooo much cheaper than replacing the counter tops) and how quick and easy it is. The guy showed up at about 9:00 this morning and was gone by noon. Is that cool, or what?! It takes a lot more time to tape everything off and get ready to do the work than it does to actually DO it. Here he is once he finally got going on it...
After he got everything taped off the way he wanted he spent some time sanding everything down (including a big, bubbly blister on the counter top in one place--you'd never know it had ever been there now), then I think he used some sort of a stripping chemical too--but I wasn't in there at the time and I missed that part. Then he filled in all of the places that were chipped with this wet puddy sort of stuff, waited a few minutes, then sanded it smooth and into shape. Then he sprayed on the brown base coat of paint followed by the big black speckles ("flecks," I think he called them) and then the smaller almond colored ones. Took down all the paper and plastic, rolled up the drop clothes, and *voila* it was finished!

The fumes were pretty heavy (even for a fume sucker like me--ha!), so Katie locked herself in her bedroom with a book and some craft supplies while the guys decided to hang out outside. This is where I found them.

And the straight-on view. Ha!
Okay, here's a set of before and after shots. Notice the big chip on the corner of the counter...
*Poof* It is gone!
Here's a close-up of what the finish looks like.
Okay, so to be totally and completely honest... I wish I had picked a different finish. It doesn't look BAD, but the color doesn't do anything for the kitchen. I was too scared to try anything more bold and so I wanted to go neutral (the last thing we need is for something ELSE to jump out at you in this kitchen, you know?! Ha!), but when I stand back and look at it I'm sure we could have done a better job finding something that would really BLEND. And I tried so hard--just fretted and fretted over it and finally picked the one that I was just sure would work the best. Oh well! Ha! I really LIKE the finish we picked, it's just not the perfect one for our current kitchen. But even still, I'm very, very happy with it--I have no regrets about doing it at all. There was probably a different finish that would have looked BETTER, but I really and truly do love the change in there--everything is so nice and clean and fresh and new. All of the chips are gone and the scratches and the two really, really faded spots that used to be there, the blobs of polyurethane--it's all GONE and I have a wonderful, fresh, clean counter top to work on! And I do love how it makes my nice, new white sink stand out and look even more new and pretty. :-)

Of course, I won't be working on it for another day or so. It takes 24 hours to cure before you're supposed to touch it, then the guy recommended giving it another day before putting anything heavy on it. So as soon as he finished up and left today we loaded the kids up and left the house. Better to just be GONE than to start screaming every time anybody starts walking toward the kitchen. :-) We went to the library first, then into town to run some errands. We didn't really have anything planned and that turned out to be a good thing, since we had a flat tire. James had one of the front tires pumped up yesterday because it was a little low. By the time we got to town today it was REALLY low again--getting pretty flat, in fact! We stopped and aired it up again and found a nail in the sidewall. ~sigh~ So we headed to the dealership to try to get it taken care of. Of course, they didn't have a new tire on hand so they called the tire shop who said they'd have it there right away, blah, blah, blah. You know how that goes. We were there two or three hours in all, but the new tire did eventually arrive and they slapped in on for us. In the meantime we watched some crazy documentary (if it can properly be called that) about aliens and then part of Bonanza and an Andy Griffith Show in the waiting room. That's a long time to be sitting around doing nothing. It was bad enough that James started weaving pot holders! Ha!

In the end it all worked out, we have a new tire, didn't have a blow-out and accident, and we have new counter tops that didn't have children forget about them and set something on them or rub up against them ahead of time. We got home at about 7:00 and the kids had to finish up on the school that they didn't get done before we left at noon. Had devotions and sent them to bed.

Here is a picture I took of the kitchen this morning...
And the one I took a few minutes ago...

Before I go, I wanted to request prayer for Joe. All of the kids came home feeling sick from the Colorado trip, but I figured they were just exhausted and overdosed on sugar. We've been home for a week now though and they're not any better! Sam just coughs a little, but isn't in too bad of shape. Katie has got a really nasty cough that just won't stop. And Joe seems to be getting worse--he's got a sore throat and can't talk very well, he's coughing a LOT, and as of tonight he crammed his finger in his ear and is crying with an ear ache--I think it's the first ear ache ever at our house. It's 11:00 now and he's still awake, coughing and wheezing and sniffling. Please help us pray that God will touch and heal all of our children! It's awful to have them feeling rotten, but when you know they're HURTING it's just that much worse. Thank you!