Finally Got My White Kitchen!

 We Have a Kitchen 

Mother nature has been trying to halt our progress, but she can't tell us what to do. We have been slowly tackling the kitchen area on days above freezing and this is probably my favorite transformation so far. I knew I wanted subway tile, so that got ordered right away. The countertop on the other hand was not as easy to decide. Was I going to make one? That seemed like a lot of work. Butcher block? super heavy and might not be smart. IKEA? Yep this was the answer.  They have some nice laminate countertops. More decisions- was I going to warm it up and go with a wood look or be cool and do the concrete look.  Votes were split 50/50 and I think I would have liked either one.  Sydney has an IKEA a few minutes from her and she was coming up to visit so she agreed to pick it up for me.  I don't think we thought this through very carefully cause the pickup was a bit more challenging than we expected.  I must not have conveyed the size very well, so Syd ventured off to IKEA alone.  Her phone died about the time she arrived so she had to figure out which one from memory.  Found a nice worker who helped her find it and then abandoned her to roll the giant rectangle countertop through IKEA "like a wheel". She somehow maneuvered it to her vehicle and realized she had to lift it and somehow wedge it in the jeep. What I would have paid to see this whole thing play out.  Gosh, I love this girl for always being willing to take on the crazy favors her mama asks of her. When she and her friend Liz drove up that weekend they said it was like being in an office cubicle cause the counter was wedged between the seats and they couldn't see each other. At least I took them both out for sushi when they delivered it. 

The one thing I am noticing about renovations is you decide what you want to do and have to work backwards.  I want to install tile, but first the counter has to go in, but before that we need to cut a notch in the wall to slide the counter under. See what I mean? Sometimes there are a dozen "but first", and the kitchen seemed like one of them. I'll try and take you on a photo play by play of the process. 

Step 1: Tear out the weird plastic tray that was there. Wow- even with the abundance of double stick tape, this part went quick and easy. 

Step 2: Cut the wall so we can slide the counter under the bumped out part. Remember when Lucas impulse bought the Dremel multitool? Well here it is coming in handy one more time. A little time consuming, but went pretty well. 

Step 3: Cut a hole for the sink. Seems simple enough. Sink and faucet had been ordered and it was time to cut a hole for the sink. Decided to put it in the middle since there is a cabinet on one side and electrical under the other.  Fun fact, I shiplapped over a pull out cutting board kind of thing that I thought we wouldn't need and now we need to cut through that very spot. The picture on the right would be one of the 2 jigsaw blade we destroyed, but we got it done in the end.  

Step 4: Cut the countertop. This one was a bit scary. We got a new laminate blade for the circular saw. We measured, put down painters tape like youtube told us, crossed our fingers and went for it. No way I could ask Sydney to get another replacement after her adventure, so we had one chance. We had to cut it to length and width. Success! 

 

Step 5: Cut the hole for the sink, again. This time we had to cut the hole in the countertop. Feeling a bit more confident, this one went pretty quickly. 

Step 6: Order a new faucet cause the one we got was too wide and would have sprayed water everywhere. Amazon returns are pretty efficient these days, so not much to say or photo documenting on this part.

Step 7: FINALLY- it's time to tile.  We used a vinyl 3D kind of sticker subway tile that many camper renovation videos talked about.  Wow, was it ever sticky. Cutting mat and a new utility knife and the job was pretty simple.  

                     

Step 7.5 Figure out what to do to patch the crazy holes from the oxygen controls so we can finish tiling. This part took a bit more work, but with a little creativity we got it done. 

Phew! That was a long process and a long post. Thanks for sticking around to see the final product. Water hookup to come later as we wont need it till Spring.  Here it is- It was definitely worth the work.