Update November 24

Aah. Pre-Turkey Day. Pre-Cookie-Baking-Season Day. I love this time of year. Last year I baked somewhere around 24 dozen cookies of all varieties, because I didn't know if I'd ever have an awesome baking kitchen again, so wanted to celebrate. This year, not so much ready, but still awesome. Maybe by mid-December we'll have the rest of the counters in. Yes, I said "rest".

Finally got the bear of the "L" shape counter in the kitchen installed. I was pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. You hear horror stories about letting the adhesive on the counter or the laminate sheet touch each other before it was time, ever to be stuck together at odd angles. I didn't want that to be us.

So imagine if you will, 12 feet of counter top, hitting an "L" shape at the end near the stove and a sink near the other end. First, you have to scribe the counter to the ever-so-lovely NON straight and plumb walls we have. Then you have to sister two pieces of 3/4 plywood together because Lowe's doesn't carry, or we don't have the capacity to carry (I don't know which) 12-foot long pieces of plywood, only 8. So it's sistered together to other pieces of wood to both attach them together, strengthen the attachment and to raise the height of the counters another 3/4 inch.

The counter is scribed on one side to the uneven wall, then the front overhang is averaged over the distance of the fronts of the cabinets because though they are level, they will not be plumb to the wall perfectly because they have to follow the walls' unnevenness. In other words, the lazy susan cabinet is closer in to the wall than the sink cabinet. However, since we're averaging the depths of the fronts with overhang on the cabinets, it should look fine, to the untrained eye. Note: All that come to the house will be required to have untrained eyes. We'll check you at the door. If you recognize us, we will turn you away.

Once all the countertop pieces were together, cut perfectly to fit, and had the sink cut out done, we were ready to apply laminate. We painted on adhesive gel on the countertop and gel on the back side of the laminate sheet, after cutting it roughly to size, with overhang everywhere. Then, while we waited for it to dry, we prayed that all the leaf-blowing in the neighborhood didn't land detritus on the surfaces, what with every last neighbor being out in the 75 degree day working on their yards. Then the fun began. Once all the glue was tacky/dry to the touch, we placed scrap long skinny pieces of wood (slats) across the plywood, spaced about a foot or so apart. Then we turned the laminate piece right-side up and placed it on top of the slats, so we could position the laminate one last time before we removed the slats one by one and rolled the laminate on to the plywood with a 3" J Roller, "applying at least 25 lbs per square inch of pressure". The trick was to keep air bubbles out of the surface as we rolled. And to keep my sanity when my husband keeps saying "oops, there's another air bubble!".

Finally, I let Rich loose with the router and he squared off all the edges, smooth and even with the plywood edges beneath (routers are just about the coolest tool out there), without magically cutting away any of the wood. Then we added a couple more small strips of laminate to the sides next to the stove and next to the fridge. Then he routed out the sink hole. When he took over, it was like magic. Then we turned the whole countertop over and installed the kitchen sink and its crazy brackets (MUCH better to do this standing over it upside down than doing it with your body contorted under the sink, looking up into a vast dark cavity!). Then we had to move it all back into the house to install it.

This SOB is quite large . . . 12 feet long, with a couple of feet turn, plus kitchen sink, plus all the wood on the underside of it giving it strength. The goal was to have no seam in the surface, so it has less ability to get water underneath and swell. No seams comes with sacrifice. After moving the whole armature twice, my arms were Jell-o. So I stood over the countertop, offering thanks to God for my arms and asking Him to infuse them with strength to do this one more time. He helped by sending the neighbors next door, who hollered "do you want some help???" while they were working on their yard. Gotta love the Lord! So the three/four of us got the whole thing in, tilted it at the right angle, got it past the fridge and the stove, and plopped it in place. Aah.

Word of note: our neighbor says we're entirely too quiet. Apparently, the only way they get things done is to yell and scream at each other what to do. She didn't see how we got anything done with no domestic disturbances.

After that, installing screws to keep it from running away, and caulking came relatively easy. Still have to install the edge banding to make it look finished, and then touch up paint from all the bangs, slings and arrows (and blood) in the backsplash. Then we'll be done on that side of the kitchen until I install some tile backsplash.

The counters are beautiful--they look like sand-colored recycled glass bits, minus the depth or expense. Maybe in a couple of years we'll install quartz or recycled glass, or maybe granite. But until then, it will do quite nicely. We spent that money elsewhere, and luckily, we won't be trying to sell it any time soon, so it's fine for the time being. There are no seams, so I'm happy.

We still have to do the other side of the stove and the whole living room shared-wall side, but we're getting there. Those should be a piece of cake compared to the first piece.

The following day, we found a home for the stove and Rich cleared out the garage while I showed property. Then we made a dump run, moved more stuff to the storage shed, and actually put some of our other stuff that's actually meant for the garage, in the garage (minus the car). There's real floor space in there now and we can find things!!

And a real treat was that Rich moved more plywood into the kitchen so that there are large expanses of flooring that don't cause sprained ankles. It's such a luxury to walk 2 feet in there without looking down for foot placement. I'm getting spoiled!

We won't be able to park in there until we figure out why the garage door keeps lowering at an angle to the ground instead of parallel to it. Until then, we'll probably just keep using it for storage. Slowly but surely we're getting our crap over to the house out of storage, so slowly but surely it's like Christmas over and over. I can't wait to finally have everything back over here!

Got a chandelier installed (with blood, sweat, and tears) and still trying to get the gumption to patch and paint walls. Not sure what else we'll get accomplished in the next few days, with Thanksgiving and Rich working this weekend. It's starting to feel more and more like a house!