A thing you learn after writing for a handful of years is that there’s a big difference between writing about an experience, and writing as an experience. Form and function interplay, and before too long the story you’re telling is a life experience all by itself. So sometimes you have to be cognizant of the experience you’re dragging your readers along for.
That’s my convoluted way of saying that you’re stuck with another kitchen post. I know you’re as sick of this saga as we are, but we’d be selfish to keep all these joys and tribulations to ourselves. And so, here’s another chapter.
And that, our good friends, is our new kitchen counter.
You don’t want to know how ridiculously difficult simple blue ceramic tile can be to get your hands on. No one stocks the stuff: go to any tile outlet and all you’ll find is marble and granite, which is fine if you’re decorating a condo in 2006. If you’re trying to replace a vintage 1940 kitchen, granite doesn’t do the job.
Thank God for homeowners insurance, is all I’m saying.
The white tile is easy to get, but the blue had to be fabricated in Southern California, and yesterday morning we got the call that the tile was ready to go. The counter was prepped yesterday, and the tile guys were here all day today, cutting tile and doing math and consulting photos of our old kitchen and trying to figure out how to lay it all out right. The metal strip was custom fabricated in Stockton, and the soap dish was successfully salvaged from our kitchen demo. The photo you see above is our new kitchen counter, as of about 4pm today.
Tomorrow they come back to grout, and the finish guys have to return to do a bit of woodwork, and there’s paint to touch up. Our new floor tiles – last we heard – are currently buried in a snowdrift somewhere on I-10 back towards Atlanta, so your guess is as good as ours when that’s going to show up. We’ll probably know about twenty minutes before the workers arrive to install it, most likely somewhere around 7am.
Here’s another shot:
So we see the end now. The counter looks beautiful – a really, really close match to the original tiles we had. It’s about an inch or so higher than the old one. There’s a dishwasher, which really is the Miracle Box in our home right now. We can start believing in the vision, the hope that our 75-plus day kitchen siege is finally grinding down to a conclusion.
I can’t promise that this is the end of our kitchen R&K posts. In fact, I can just about guarantee that we’ll drag this on for a bit longer. For now, however, please join us in basking within the divine glow, the miraculous angel-song light in the background, drawing us ever-so-gracefully into the world of modern kitchen appliances and domestic food preparation without pain.
Can we get an amen, brothers and sisters?