Hey guys!  Apologies I haven't been here in a while, but we really haven't done a lot of work on the house - all our time has been spent preparing for show, attending shows, filling orders after shows, LOL, and not much personal plans... though Bill and I did take time to go to a local theatre production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, which was very cute, and quite well done.  And although June was a super hectic month, with a sad family loss and two shows... we actually managed to get some work done on the house!

Really!  We FINALLY decided we were satisfied with the kitchen layout, so we did some wiring and plumbing corrections, to suite the new configuration (the hardest part of this whole thing was getting a plumber to show up for such a little job as re-plumbing the sink inside the new cabinet). 

Once that cabinet was in place, we ordered the new countertop - and it came in way faster than we expected!  I literally got home from a show late Sunday, and had to have all the cabinets emptied, and the sink removed, as they showed up early Monday morning.  Fortunately, our DD emptied the cabinets for me, so I only had to turn the water off and remove the sink, unplug the stove top and lift it out of the old counter etc.  I had to laugh though, I guess I wasn't specific about what was happening, as she emptied ALL the cabinets - even the top ones, LOL, when they just needed the lowers emptied so they would have room to work.

There is still some work to be done, as Bill is building one more cabinet (which will slide into place under the countertop), and we're going to put a half-wall on the back of the lower cabinets between the diningroom and kitchen.

Had a wonderful stroke of luck though... we had purchased a couple of packages of tiles to try with the countertop to see what we wanted for backsplash... we made a decision - these varied thin strips of tiles of metal and tile, on a sheet - but hadn't purchased them yet.  My mom and sister were out garage sale-ing, and they found someone who had used ALMOST THE SAME TILE, and had 5 boxes (that's 25 sheets) that he only wanted $40 for!  Since we paid almost $20 for ONE sheet, LOL, we jumped all over this!  So I have 26 backsplash tile sheets (since we already bought one), and I did a rough calculation, and that's going to be really close to being enough!  I may pick up another half dozen, just to be sure we have them, and I can return what we don't use...

Bill is off for the month of July (actually 5 weeks, I believe), so we are hoping to get new countertops into the apartment in Belleville, so we can start advertising for renters (I'm losing my staff, sniff, sniff, as our oldest DD, who has been working for me for several years not (and renting the apartment) is now moving to Waterloo next week)... and we want to do some work on the 'little house' my parents used to live in, converting it to a one-bedroom (quite a large size one though), with high ceilings in the livingroom.  New flooring in there, reconfigure the kitchen... new carpet in the bedroom... maybe update the bathroom a little... AND finish the kitchen... whew, 5 weeks may not be enough ROFLOL, but I'll let you know next month how we do!