Kitchen Remodel

Another phase of house projects emerged when we went to the Parade of Homes last summer.  So. much. sleekness.  We came home and looked at our house and thought, "We can make some changes here."  So we talked about a lot of updates and then there was this moment where Scott said, "I could probably just order an extra slab of any kind of marble or granite from China for free," like it was just something he could've done at any time during our home-owning sojourn.  As my eyes grew bigger and bigger and started to reflect entire housing structures made of marble, we both realized why he's been keeping this information from me.  I told him, "For free, this may be something to look into...  Maybe."  So he did, and here is our lovely slab we got for our kitchen.

It literally took over a year for us to finally get this thing from China to Utah and then installed, but we've had a few other priorities since then...

Now, I'm not one of those people who feels like in order to wake up each morning they need granite countertops.  You didn't think those people existed did you?  Well they do.  An acquaintance once told me that if she had a house with formica (plastic) countertops, she'd apologize to her guests any time they'd come over.  And I thought to myself, judging by your priorities, I don't think you will ever get anyone to agree to be a guest at your house...which was very rude of me, but c'mon people, get over yourselves.  Anyway, the granite is beautiful, but life pre-granite was no different than it is now.  For the record.

And now the process!

The kitchen when we moved in...yikes.

The kitchen after we painted 3 years ago.  Much improved.

And then all the work this year!

Undermount sinks = happiness.  Also half divides = pure joy.

Wow, this makes it seem like this was so easy.  It. was. not.  This took like 20 hours of solid work and Scott has a giant gash in his arm from carrying the granite and I got electrocuted once during this, but hallelujah, it is done!

September Ramblings

Are you all tired of hearing about Baby Ives yet?  I don't really love reading about most other people's baby updates either, so we'll take a break from that for now.  To be fair, she kind of consumes...all of my time and the time she doesn't consume is mostly spent on tax analysis, so take your pick, people.

Speaking of time consumption, during the last few weeks I've made many potentially unwise decisions to resume a lot of things I'm sure I don't have time to do...like my food blog (new stuff coming soon).  And finally putting in our kitchen counters and backsplash (supposedly next week...*skeptical face*).  And trying to set a new pull-up record (maybe this is never happening, but let's celebrate the fact that I can still do them after 8 months off!?).  Anyway, I am excited to get down to business with so many things that I love doing.  Like photographing new pizza recipes, which...we didn't even like. Ha.

I sometimes question whether trying new recipes is even a good thing...

Speaking of kitchen fails, I made the genius decision to get into food prep so I can eat better lunches since this post-baby dream metabolism seems to be returning to normal and not allowing me to eat ice cream every day with no ill effect (shocking I know).  I put an entire bag of chicken out on the grill last Sunday and surprise, the propane ran out...  You know what doesn't require propane to cook?  Ice cream.

Umm also exciting--Halloween.  I haven't dressed up since 2010, but guess what?  I have a baby now and costumes are a must.  We are all dressing up and it's going to be awesome.  I even bought a wig today.  I also thought of a secret genius plan for next year as well so try to contain your curiosity!

September is pretty good.

Blessing Day