Kitchen Sink

Home Depot called on Friday morning to inform us that our kitchen counter tops were ready for pickup. Of course, I had driven the car to the office so I went home at lunch time and swapped it for the truck. A few hours later, I was home with the counters. It is fiddly work getting them put together and mounted correctly so we opted to wait for daylight and do it on Saturday. The smaller chunk went in just fine in the corner between the stove and the fridge and looked great, but the larger piece comprising the peninsula had a problem. We were missing the draw bolts for that section and a small piece that finished off the backsplash at the end. The draw bolts (4 of them) hold the two sections of counter top together at the long mitred seam in the corner. Without them we couldn't mount the counters on the cabinets and therefore couldn't install the sink. I took some pics of the offending backsplash piece but seeing as it was very late in the day decided that an early trip back to HD on Sunday morning was in order.
After a beautiful early drive down the hill, I quickly located Carmen (our HD sales rep), showed her the pics and told her my tale of woe regarding the draw bolts. She quickly got me fixed up with the bolts, ordered the missing backsplash piece and got me on my way. The part should be here on Wednesday, she said.
So, back at home, I managed to get the two pieces of counter top bolted together and slipped into position on the cabinets. It looked great! Carol was busy prepping for an early mini-Xmas dinner for the three of us - Alex was heading to his Dad's place in Vancouver the next day. When she finished with her pie crust pastry, I screwed it all down, marked the position of the sink and proceeded to cut out the scary large hole in our beautiful new counter! We had assembled the sinks, drains, taps and water feed lines and just had to drop them into the opening. I must be getting better at this stuff because it fit perfectly! I still needed to make the connections to the supply lines and glue the drain pipes and trap in the correct position. Again, it all went smoothly and the sink was ready to go.
Carol came over to be the first to try it out. Remember we have been without a sink, other than the small one in the downstairs bathroom, since mid-August. This was a big moment for us! Luckily, it all worked great! We are very happy with our choices regarding the kitchen. The cabinets, counters and sinks all look really nice and work exactly as we'd hoped. The kitchen has been through several "looks too small", "looks bigger than we planned" phases as we got it all put together. I have to say though, that we're very pleased with how it turned out, and the size seems perfect.
Now that Carol is home from her trip to Ontario, we were finally able to get the Christmas tree and decorations out. Alex helped his mom put the tree up and Carol played `elf` decorating the place with the few bits and pieces that we have. The house looks really nice and the tree, nestled in the corner, really "warms" it up.

We will try and post again before "the day", but if we don't, we would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and the Happiest New Year. Thanks, for following along on our blog and we hope that you are gaining something from our experiences building this house.