Random post...getting caught up.

Long time, no see!!!  Sorry for the absence....Mama Staunton, Jim and I were working like dogs last week trying to get the house ready for Easter entertaining.   Man am I sore!  I'm not used to daily physical activity since my normal routine is being stuck behind a computer for 8+ hours a day.  But Easter went great and it feels good to be amongst the normal people again with a nice, clean house!  Well at least for a couple days as our house will get messy again this week due to the sanding and staining of the floors. 

We have been taking our new appliances for a test run to make sure everything runs the way it should.  Or it could be just Jim's excuse to try out the tappen yaki grill.  Below Jim is practicing his onion flipping skills.  This only took about 10 tries to get the money shot but not bad.

And the penny tile was installed and to say I'm in love is an understatement!!!!!!!!!  I just love the way it shines when the light catches it!!!!  LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!  I think it goes with the granite and the wall color. 

And the tiled back splash against the range wall.

A close up from the side.

Ahhhh I'm so happy with it!

And the wall looking into Lady Land.  Just wait till we have the open shelves up.  Then the walls hopefully won't look so empty.

And we stopped the tile right where the peninsula ends.  The tile guy did such a nice job.  I stare at it constantly. 

And here are 4 out of the 6 kiddos for our annual Easter egg hunt right before we let them run wild.  Aren't they so cute???

There goes Jake in his brand new teal jeans.

Avery and Evan going crazy scooping up all the eggs they can get. 

And there's AJ and Jake on the hunt.

And afterwards!  Man did those kids clean up or what??? 

Overall entertaining in the new kitchen was great!!!  There's so much more room to move around in and no more fighting for oven space.  It was awesome and looking around on Easter really made my heart swell with gratitude for all that we have. 

Floors are getting stained this week so back to no kitchen for a full week.  More updates to come!



Let's talk...back splash tile

Man did we have a hard time with this.  Or I should say I had a hard time with this.  I knew what I wanted but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted.  Jim put it perfectly..."you want a tile that does not exist!".  But I wasn't giving up hope.  I knew I wanted a solid color throughout, shiny and unique.  That doesn't seem hard to find right?  HA!  Think again my friends. 

We went to many-a tile shops on our weekend 'burbs trips.  I was in complete sticker shock!  I couldn't believe my eyes with the prices per square feet these places were asking!  It was insane!  So add to the prices and not being able to find what we were looking = many a depressing trips.  But we kept pressing on.  I had read about a place called The Tile Shop that offered affordable but great looking tile.  As luck would have it, they just opened up two shops in Massachusetts, one being less than 20 minutes from us.  It was fate I tell you! 

The shop itself is awesome.  Tons of displays of actual kitchens and bathroom which was helpful since you could visualize what the tile would look like installed and they really cater to DIYers, which you know I love.

So what did we end up getting? What was the tile that was like a chupacabra or sasquatch?? We went with the penny round tile in moss (it reads green for some reason on the computer screen but is more of a greyish blue in person).

We will be using an unsanded dove grey grout (also from The Tile Shop).

And to cap off the top of the penny rounds to give it a finished look, we will be using a 3/8" pencil marble tile (also from The Tile Shop).

We decided to forgo the traditional 4" granite back splash in favor of using the back splash tile 6" up from the counters.  Buuuut of course we didn't count on the electrical outlets getting in the way....details schmetails!  Sooo it was either go above or below the electrical outlets.  We went for below.  How'd we figured that out?  By the really complicated method of holding up the tile against the wall to see how it looked both ways.  The tile is getting installed Tuesday.  So check  back next week for how this will all look once installed.