Kitchen Work

We told the landlord a couple of years ago that we might want to change the tile work in the kitchen.  Although there is decorative tile on the walls behind the counter tops (which is not a favorite but we can live with it), the counter tops themselves and the front of the cabinets around the doors are a medium-blue tile.  I really dislike blue in homes and a whole kitchen has been difficult to bear.

To that you can add that the tile work was older and worn around the edges.

That's the corner of the new stove.

The kitchen sink was also an older stainless steel number with sarro (calcium) stains especially around the faucets.  We meant to replace the whole thing but thought it was going to be an expensive project, so kept putting it off.

Then the kitchen faucets started leaking, creating even more stains on the sink.  We decided that the fault was with the faucet, rather than just a simple gasket replacement job, since the water leaked out under the hot water knob whether we had turned on the hot water or the cold!  So we stopped at Home Depot on the way to Costco the next time we were in Celaya (the larger town about 40 - 45 km away).  Found the faucet we had seen on their website, bought it, and took it home. 

Eventually we called the maintenance company (still anticipating a huge bill) and asked them to install it.  While waiting for them to stop by and give us an estimate, we decided to replace the sink, too.  So we sent them off with a deposit to purchase the sink and needed materials for the installation.  It turns out that the sink superstructure was composed of - what else? - cement.  So the tiles around the old sink had to be chipped off, the cement leveled with hammer and chisel, then the new tile cemented (using real cement) into place.

Did I mention that the sink was about 1-1/2" short of the size of the hole in the counter top from the earlier sink?  So decisions  had to be made about spacing.

Lo and behold,  they also discovered that the rim of the sink was sandwiched between the counter top tile and the backsplash tile on the wall and that to remove the sink, the tile fractured!  So we had to add some new tile to the job.  Couldn't find blue tile (just as well) so went with an off-white that was approximately the background color of the wall/back-splash tiles.

And it looked pretty neat installed around the sink (oh yes, as I mentioned, the new sink was a little less wide than the original, so they needed to fill in with extra tile and also replace the backsplash tile with the off-white tile.  It was a pretty obvious difference, but it was also pretty obvious that it looked pretty nice!

So we worked up our gumption and asked what it would cost to re-tile the rest of the counters - and was pleasantly surprised to find it affordable!  So in a couple of weeks (April the 6th, actually) the old tile will be removed and new tile installed (saving the expense of re-grouting the old counters to more closely match the new work around the sink.

Oh, and here's the new sink.  The blue stripe at the bottom right-hand corner of the photo is the original tile which will also be replaced.

The new cross handles will make it simpler to turn the water on and off with soapy hands!

So we're going to have an almost brand new kitchen soon.  We replaced the estufa (stove w/oven) recently.  Next up - installing a recirculating hood over the new stove.  It isn't often that there's cooking smoke in the kitchen, but when it occurs, it's awful! Filtering the air will be a good thing; maybe the cabinets won't get so sticky....

Eventually we'll have the light switches for the backyard lights moved inside the living/dining rooms so we don't have to stumble outside in the dark before switching on the lights.  Hope to get that changed before visitors arrive later this year.

We'll post pictures of the completed kitchen once the work is done.  At least we got some of the work done before our current lease expired.  Should have a new one to sign this weekend!