Wow long time, no write

It's been so long since I last posted! I have no real excuse, other than being busy at work. I also really need to take better photos.
But there has been progress on the home front!

We installed the tile surround. Since I ordered the tiles in stages over the course of a year and from different suppliers, I had to lay out the pattern on the ground to make sure that the different variations were appropriately spread out.

 Ringo helped us lay out the pattern!

 Nearly done, except for the grout!

 We went with gray grout in hopes it will be easier to keep looking clean.

Mission accomplished!!! Super awesome wall oven, microwave with surround and 36" gas cooktop. HURRAAHHHH.

In case you forgot, this is what the this part of the kitchen looked like when we moved in:

Happy New Year!

Over the winter break house renovations continued. It was a total bummer though because the plan was to play "Renovation Realities" (I love that show) and install the carrara marble subway tile around the cooktop. Unfortunately someone (me) didn't order enough tile. And we couldn't even start, since when the new tile comes, if it's wildly different it will need to be shuffled into the deck.
So we did other things.

AND THE MOST AMAZING THING HAPPENED. We removed the old crappy wall oven from the 70s and found hardwood floors! Which means that there are hardwood floors underneath our HIDEOUS brown tile floors. At least in the dining room and part of the kitchen. So exciting and will hopefully save us so much money, as refinishing floors will be a lot cheaper than buying and installing tile. We'll just have to decide what to do to join the rooms (dining and kitchen are pretty open concept). We could install wood in the kitchen, but that's probably not the most practical solution, since I'm messy and we have dogs.

I also continued painting kitchen cabinets.

And here is an after shot (minus the new herringbone marble backsplash of course).

Soon to be revealed is our new stainless microwave oven and trim kit, for that built-in look!