If the Tortoise and the Hare is accurate, and if renovating a kitchen is a race, then I have a shot at winning said race. Especially if the emphasis is on the word “slow.”

There’s progress to be seen, though, and that’s really exciting. We still haven’t painted the cabinet doors, but we’re no longer letting that stop us from using the cabinets.

Ready to play a game? It’s called: What’s new?

I’m going to skip to the fun part of this game. Here’s what’s new, since the last time you saw the kitchen–

First off, we have some cabinet doors now! Obviously they are not painted white, as they should (and will!) be. It’s another nice example of scope creep. I wanted to be able to use the cabinets, but I didn’t want to get sawdust on everything inside the cabinets when we go to drill holes for the new hinges. So I installed the doors now in order to get the hinges placed accurately, and I’ll take the doors back down to paint them.

Second, we have lights!

Remember last week, when I took down the fluorescent light that was there and discovered yellow paint and lots of holes to patch? (If not, see here.) Well, it turned out there was more to the scope creep than just painting the ceiling. There also appeared to be no junction box in the ceiling, which meant no way to attach the new track lighting. After some fun times in the attic crawl space, it turned out there was a junction box, it had just been shoved up into the attic for some reason.

My brother helped me install a new and improved junction box anyway, and then helped me get the new track lighting mounted, which was sort of an ordeal. I’m very happy with how they turned out though.

Third, the cork floor is now done! Ben did an awesome job on it, and it feels so great to have that done. It looks awesome and feels really nice underfoot. I painted and installed shoe molding around all the cabinets so there’s no gap at the edge of the cabinets. Still need to touch up the nail holes in the shoe molding, and install thresholds at the doorways and where the cork floor meets carpet. We also have not installed flooring in the pantry, so that needs to happen soon, too…

As for the cork, we got a super good deal on these tiles–I think they were under $3/sq. ft., and since Ben did the installation, it worked out to $650 or so for the whole floor. I was originally looking for a darker gray color, but the light color does really brighten up the space.

I had a close call when I spilled tomato sauce on the floor, and after wiping it up there was a big yellow stain. I really thought I’d ruined our brand-new floor. Soap and water didn’t work, vinegar and water didn’t work, but Soft Scrub cleaned it up in an instant. Sigh of relief!

Finally, we also have a new faucet!

It’s the Ringskar from Ikea, and it does work really well, especially for our shallow sink. I was so impressed with the look of it when Daniel from Manhattan Nest installed it in his shallow apartment sink, I knew I had to give it a shot.

Also featured in that grainy photo is our newest french press. After breaking yet another glass french press (our fourth, maybe?), we finally decided to spring for a stainless steel press. We’re really hoping it will be our last. It’s made by Frieling, and it wasn’t cheap, but it works really really well so far, and will be well worth it if it lasts for years and years, as we hope it will. I definitely love the way it looks, too, though not in this miserable photo.

Tomorrow I’ll have some photos of the other half of the kitchen, our dining area. Get excited!