The tile came in – and installation began 2 days early! That was pretty thrilling. Two weeks ago we repainted the walls based on the tile recommendations of Karen, the Tile Guru. She was nice enough to come to our house to “get a feel” before helping us find the right tile, and I appreciate that kind of effort. Of course, she was right – the Chelsea Gray is perfect, so we’ve been pretty pumped to see the tile. And….pre-grout, it is beautiful. 

Tiled window

window, pre tile

Tile background for bookcase

The Problem emerges

While the tile was going in, I had a pretty rough day at work, so by the time I got home with the kids, ordered a digital print from Target, picked up dinner, ran to Target for photo, hurried home to finish kindergarten poster project with photo, I was pretty beat. All I wanted to look at was the tiled window. This has been one of my favorite design features of the kitchen – tiling up and around the sink window – and I was really excited with how it turned out. Our tile installer rocks. He even cut the tile in a curve to match our crown molding! As I’m started to wrap things up, Jeff strolls in and asks if I’ve looked at the stove yet. That was the other big event – the range was replaced – and that’s what I thought Jeff was referring to. Nope. He was referring to The Problem. The Problem is an inch. An inch that we didn’t see when the cabinets are white and the pre-tiled plaster is white. And inch that means the vent and the stove are not lined up correctly. The stove is pushed one inch to the right of the vent. As I looked at it, my heart immediately sank. How is this fixable? The counters are in. The cabinets are filled. How did we not notice before? Why didn’t ANYONE see this coming?!!!

So I called Bob the Builder. This time, I was the one delivering the bad news. He promised to come over and look at it the next morning. By 10am, I had two messages from the cabinet-maker and there was a plan to fix it. It’s going to be a bit of a production next week, and we’re going to lose an inch out of the lazy susan corner cabinet,  but the range will be placed where it should be – evenly and perfectly lined up with our vent. Renovations of this size – any size, really – are bound to have some issues. While I could have done without the panic of “oh my blankety blank blank, what are we going to do,” I couldn’t ask for better help from our contractor and the vendors. A month from now I’ll be sipping wine and enjoying the kitchen…..and probably the new gas fireplace the city is going to require us to put in. The air exchange issue is yet to be resolved…and is another blog post.

The good news? The range replacement is perfect. I LOVE it. And the oven works! I think I may make banana bread this weekend to celebrate. Do you have a favorite recipe to share? I’m on the hunt to make one better than my Aunt Sarah’s. (I know she’s reading this!)