All right, so I was so excited that the cabinet project turned out so well, I thought hey, let’s change the countertops too. Not really, but again the project was well worth it.

So when Jimmie brought the boys back on Thursday, she was amazed at the cabinet transformation. After some discussion (not including Scott), we decided to see how easily the countertops would come up. To our astonishment, it did not take a lot of effort at all. Long story short, we updated the countertops in less than 24 hours. It actually took longer than that for the curing and sealing, but after a week, the cabinets and countertops are finally finished. Again if you’re thinking of doing a project like this yourself, here are some pointers from an amateur:

1. Rent a tile saw. We initially bought a $17 tile cutter that stunk. We were working with 12 inch tiles and almost went through a whole box before we gave up. Had we rented the saw from the get go, we would have saved a ton of time. It cost $50 bucks, but that was totally worth our sanity.

2. Make sure to clean off the tile glue REALLY well of the top of the tiles, so that it doesn’t dry on top. This was probably the worst part of the whole project because it took a lot of work to get it off the tiles.

3. Make small batches of grout. I did not need all the grout and ended up wasting a bunch that way.

4. Clean the grout off the tiles more than once. This was not nearly as bad as the glue, but it wasn’t fun either.

This part of the kitchen remodel cost about $250, bringing the total remodel cost (including cabinets) to $400. Again, it doesn’t look like a professional installed the tile, but it completely beats the harvest gold counters we used to have. I definitely would not recommend doing a project like this alone. Thankfully Jimmie did all of the tile cuts and planning. I really only glued, cleaned, grouted and sealed. I am of the opinion the cutting was the hard part.