I was kind of afraid of caulking – maybe because I’d never caulked before, maybe because if you read instructions online, they all talk about how hard silicone caulk is to control, maybe just because it’s nearly the last thing I have to do and I didn’t want to mess up something this late. But it turns out, caulking isn’t hard. Like, at all. Taping every seam you want to caulk is incredibly mind-numbing, but it’s not hard, and then all you have to do is run the caulk bead and smooth it out with a rubbing-alcohol-coated finger, then peel up the tape immediately. Voila, perfect straight caulk lines. I did most of the seams tonight, and I’m planning on doing the rest tomorrow. Yay for caulk!

This weekend I did toekicks and light rail. IKEA toekicks are a piece of melamine-covered MDF, with a groove along the back to accept a clip. The clip clicks onto the cabinet legs, and there’s your toekick. The light rail goes along the bottom edge of the upper cabinets, to hide the undercabinet light fixtures, and is a nice little decorative finishing piece.

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I fear I have fallen behind – but here, have an update! I’ve been working much less steadily on the kitchen, ignoring it for entire evenings – it’s amazing how much less urgent it all feels when you’ve got a working stove.

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Today my floor guys came back to put on the final coat of poly. I’m not posting new pictures, because it looks just like before, only maybe very slightly shinier. But a conversation today reminded me that I never actually showed what the bottom layer of lineoleum looked like. Way back in this post I showed all the layers of floor I had to go through to get to the hardwood.

But I hadn’t discovered the extent of the awesomeness of the bottom layer of flooring, yet. That happened a week or so later, as I got to the middle of the floor on the “eating” side of the room, and discovered a medallion. A star, made of different colors of linoleum, in the sorta-middle of the floor. I say sorta-middle because it wasn’t actually centered – to the room, to the window, to the cabinets, to anything. And the existence of this medallion concerned me, because it implied that maybe there was another one in the middle of the “kitchen” side of the room. Turns out, I was right to be concerned, because not only was there another one, it was also not centered. To anything, including the other medallion. I… there are just not words for the randomness.

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So I wasn’t entirely certain about my backsplash during this whole process – I had a really strong vision about a lot of things (red, moving everything to the other side of the kitchen, the half wall…), but for the backsplash, my first and only thought was “white subway tile.” And then I second-guessed myself for several weeks, while all the other pieces were happening – is it too trendy? It is, right now, but it’s also so neutral it’s hard to claim it’s not classic. And I knew I didn’t want to commit any major color to tile – it’s so very permanent. So despite not having any other ideas, I wasn’t certain about the tile. But the image of my kitchen in my head has always had white subway tile – so I gave in to the obvious solution, and today went out and bought nearly $100 worth of tile (for those of you who like budgets and numbers – stay tuned for an eventual “costs” post, to be made once all the details are done/paid for!).

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Well, I’m now into that last 10% that’ll take as long as the first 90% did to complete. Thursday, my mom stopped by IKEA for me and acquired some extra toekick, deco strip, those missing knobs, and a few drawer organizers. Friday, my contractor came back for the last time, to finish the molding that makes the cabinets meet the ceiling, and to get his last payment. He was truly awesome throughout this job, and I totally recommend him to anyone in the area.

Over the past couple days, I painted all the trim, did touch-ups on the walls where they got dinged during the install, and re-assembled the living room. I also went and checked out white subway tile at the two big box stores near me – bought one piece from each place to bring home, and it turns out, well, they’re both white subway tile. The Home Depot one looks just a tiny bit grey in the light in my kitchen, though, so I’m going with the Lowe’s one – it’s a whole cent more expensive per tile… which’ll cost me an extra 3 bucks, total. I think it’s worth it.
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