My "New" Kitchen

I finally have something to link to Metamorphosis Monday at Susan's Between Naps on the Porch -- my "new" kitchen.

We have lived with the original (1985) Formica counters since we moved in almost ten years ago, and in that period, the cost of granite has gone down quite a bit.  We worked with a local granite company, Goldstone, and it took us a while to find slabs we liked.  We had to take a little break for Christmas and our son's wedding, but one cold, rainy Saturday last month we drove to Austin and browsed through a giant warehouse of granite.  We wanted something (A) rather dramatic and (B) that would go well with our existing cabinets.  We took the small cabinet door over the fridge along.. Here's one of the two slabs we selected, called Vesuvio. 

Here's the "Before" of the kitchen, just before the old countertops were removed.  We had removed the drawers and emptied all the lower cabinets in preparation -- quite a job!  I should have thought to take a photo of the dining room, chock full of kitchen stuff!

My husband stayed home while the installers were there, and he took photos throughout the process.  Here's the granite arriving in our driveway.

The demolition begins!

The counters go in. .

.

Notice the seam where the two pieces meet in the photo below.

After they worked their magic -- what seam??

Here's the island, where the installers had to cut out a section for the cooktop.

The next day, the tile backsplash was installed.  They started with the area over the sink.

We decided to keep the backsplash very plain everywhere else, so as not to compete with the granite.

We had to live without a kitchen sink from Monday through Wednesday morning, because the plumber wanted to be sure the undermounted sink's seal was dry.  We were very happy to finally see this!

Here are the "After" views.

We really love the new look!  Thanks for visiting!