Photo Essay
2008-05-01, 10:11 a.m.

Day 1348 And so it begins. Captions will be under the photos. Bigger, higher res shots are posted in Picasa.>

This is Joe, one of the installers, inside the truck. He�s not too sur e about us just yet. We get him to open up just a wee bit as the day goes on.


The obligatory shot of our slabs sitting in the truck. I snuck this in while the guys were inside sizing things up.

One of the early slabs sorta in place. No backsplash, no glue, not even clean. Yet.

This is on the north wall, over near the sliders. Glued, caulked, waiting for sealer & buffing.

Work in progress � some of the fun chemicals in use. The denatured alcohol wasn�t too bad. The epoxy resin they were using? Ought to be a controlled substance.

This really is on purpose. Tilting it allows the really long slab with the sink cutout to be slid into place.

This is Sam, the founders� grandson, doing a little tweaking. This was the only �adjustment� they had to make all day. Cindy now has that little hunk of backsplash at work.

See? It really did turn out OK. The piece Sam adjusted? Runs into the corner from the left side. The sink? Epoxied in place. If you stick your head under the sink, you can still catch a buzz from the fumes.

Kids these days! How on earth does he keep those pants on? Is there Velro involved? I�m glad for 2 things � A � Sam somehow DID manage to keep his jeans near his hips and B � at least he had interesting plaid boxers on. Much better than tighty whitey�s.

Almost all done. This is the south wall just left of the stove. There�s a smudge of rtv in the center. Got that cleaned up (rubbing alcohol) and started the sealing process.

Looking back over that same counter. You can see a good hunk of the floor there too � and the table that managed to catch most of the stuff that WAS on the conters. And tools, and screws and drill bits and everything but dinner.

That pesky south wall. Quite a change from a month ago when it looked more like Frankenstein�s monster.



After Joe & Sam were done, I got to re-plumb the kitchen sink, again. At least this time it was the new sink, new faucet, new counter, new pipes and the same old disposal. When I was done? Figured I�d earned one or two of these. Yum. See � the porter shows you how black the counter isn�t.

Happily, all that�s left is to add the backsplash tile, finish up the moldings and do all the outlet covers. Then there�s all the collateral damage done to the neighboring rooms (only 2) that has to be repaired. Then there�s moving the pond, building a deck, re-doing the patio and re-facing the fireplace � all before the flooring gets put in the former family room. Oh � and I forgot to add swapping out the nasty old sliders with some energy efficient windows. Before winter. Guess what? You�ll get to hear me whining about every step of the way. Exciting, eh?