Stained Glass and New Counters

I only worked a half day today, so that I could be home in the morning for a visit from the plumber. 

He was here for 3.5 hours, and then I walked to work for the afternoon. I picked an easy outfit that I've worn before. Nothing wrong with an old favourite!

• Baby blue blouse - no label, vintage 80s, thrifted; last worn here in March with a fine skirt
• Dress - Tangerine Jill, consignment; last seen here in February before the VFF Gala
• Shoes - Half Truth Veda, Fluevog; last worn here in April with a lovely skirt

As always when I wear this dress, I get comments like, "Partridge Family bus! Stained glass! A painter!" [they mean Piet Mondrian]

I've always called it my stained glass dress. It's a sheer black silk organza with all of those squares of silk shantung sewn on individually.

It's really quite amazing - I have had it for years!

I bought it in 2011 for $42.00 at The Velvet Crease and I've worn it 13 times (this is the 3rd time with this blouse!), so my cost-per-wear is going well at just over $3 per outing.

Today, I discovered a rip in the black silk right where my hand is, below, on my hip.

 This would be a good instance where iron-on interfacing could save it from tearing further - it would be invisible once mended, so I'll definitely be doing that. It's sad when clothes start to wear out!

The stuff:

Speaking of wearing out, these shoes have taken a beating in the 5 years that I've had them. I've worn them a LOT. They'll be replaced eventually, when I find another pair of amazing black kitten heels!

• Earrings - Stella & Dot, consignment, Vancouver
• Fulvia Ring - Wendy Brandes

So! L and I have been in a state of renovation for just over a week - and it's been very stressful. Other people do massive renos, but we do fairly little ones, as both of us hate having our space disrupted and our routines discombobulated.

When we bought our condo - which was built in the mid-70s - it was painted blackboard green throughout, with thick white/cream carpet. Instead of tile in the hall/kitchen/bathroom, it had carpet with patches of ugly, original laminated flooring.

I found this very old picture of L (from back when I hid his face!) feeding our first kitty Othello some tuna:

The counters were yellow, we had glitter "stone" floors, the original brown wood cupboards were pale yellow with giant original hardware. The kitchen walls were covered with puffy wallpaper. It was truly...hideous.

We lived with it for a few years, and then painted the cupboards bright orange, put in malachite green laminate countertops, and scraped all the wallpaper off and painted the walls terra cotta. What can I say? It was the early 00s. We thought it looked great at the time!

We last did renos to our kitchen about 15 years ago, when we replaced our cupboard and drawer fronts and hardware, trimmed out the swoopy wood over the sink, and painted all but the facing walls cream to match the new fronts. It's not as yellow as it looks here - it's all cream.

"Why do you keep taking pictures of the kitchen? I'm right here!"

We couldn't afford to do the counters, so again, we just lived with them, until this year, when we'd saved up enough to replace the counters and the old, not-working-properly taps (our cat-sitting friends Cat and Ross were ready to rebel!).

Last Friday, we were all set to have our new counters installed...except the guy who measured it all, and noted that the long counter on the right wouldn't fit in our building's elevator...forgot to note that to the guys who cut the counter. This was the state of our kitchen.

Fridge in the dining room, sink gone. No counter. Unhappy L and Sheila!

The stove was in the dining room too.

Good thing we don't have a dining room table. We've been eating out a lot this past week!

We had to wait till Monday to have the 500 lb slab cut, and then it was all installed yesterday:

Look at our lovely creamy-white counters! The sink/faucet is still not hooked up, though - that had to wait till today.

We opted for quartz countertops, and chose a cream to match the cupboards/walls, with a slight brown fleck/veining in it.

It lasts forever, doesn't have to be sealed and doesn't stain. Perfect for us!

So pretty! The piece of wood with the clamp is to hold the slab in place until all the adhesives/caulking are fully dry.

They definitely make our kitchen look bigger, until we cram all our crap back onto the counters, heh heh. 

Our big issue was with the sink. We'd ordered an "over-mount" sink, which sits on top of the counter, but due to some (more) mix-ups, we got under-mount. Not a terrible thing - it does look really nice - but the extra depth (modern sinks are really deep), it didn't line up with our drain pipe! 

We were terrified we'd be without a kitchen sink (it's been a pain only having our bathroom sink), or that we'd have to tear a hole in the common area stairwell to reposition our ancient plumbing, but this morning, our awesome plumber was able to make it work.  

Tah-dah! What a nice sink! And a faucet that works! Ooh...swanky!

We are cautiously optimistic that there won't be any leaks, and that the dishwasher will run properly. Please send good vibes!