June Kitchen Renovation Update: Windows + Flooring!

We. Have. Floors.

In the kitchen.

Real, actual flooring.

It’s been awhile since we’ve shared the kitchen updates, so before we dive into all the flooring goodness, let’s start from where we left off, way back in April:

And now here is where we’re at today:

What’s not pictured above is the new window and sliding glass door that we installed in the kitchen.

And by ‘we’ I mean Brett and my dad. They spent an entire week installing doors and windows – in addition to the kitchen we also swapped in a new door that goes out to the backyard, a new window in the basement and a slider in the basement. It was a busy week 😛

Here’s another view of the kitchen with the new slider and window:

You’ll notice that we removed the small window to the left of the doorway – like all the other windows in the home, it was original and ready to be replaced. We opted for a larger main window in removing that one. And, the door that we replaced at the bottom of the stairs has a window in it so we can see the dogs when they’re ready to come in. Which was the primary function of the smaller window we covered, so it was a win-win.

Moving onto the floor.

After 19 purchased floor samples, we FINALLY came to an agreement on a tile called New York Soho from Floor and Decor.

We had to do a custom order for the stair cover so it took about a week to get the tile and stair piece ready. On the positive, we ended up saving around $350 in shipping costs because Brett was able to swing over to Milwaukee on his way home from a work trip.

And to make the entire installation even more fun, we both fell in love with the herringbone pattern. Brett added to complexity by adding a border around the entire kitchen but boy, it looks good!

Speaking of Brett, special shoutout to my amazing husband – putting down this tile was not a walk in the park and he powered through like a champ.

The snapshot of our week:

We laid the backboard down on a Saturday and Sunday.

Brett started tiling on Monday and finished the main area on Tuesday.

Wednesday and Thursday we spent cutting in the edging and all the incomplete pieces.

Friday, we cleaned the mortar and grouted.

Saturday, we cleaned the grout off the tile because it turns out, grout dries really fast and I completely spaced on said drying abilities.

This week, I’m going through and doing touch ups on the grout before we do an acid-wash to remove the haze. It’s hard to tell in the images but there’s a slight hazy look to everything so the acid should take care of that.

Also, I can’t imagine I’m the first one to screw up grout so I’ll definitely be posting a tutorial on how we cleaned everything 🙂 Stay tuned!

Next steps…

Once the tile is ready to go, we can move the furniture back in the kitchen and paint the walls. Then, it’s time to put up the trim around the pantry door and install said pantry door. We can also install the baseboards around the cabinets and finish up the kitchen island doors.