So it had started very badly:

Our floors were the wrong color, our baseboards were trashed, and the same crew that did the bang-up job was back again to fix their mistakes. That foul-up meant our kitchen was still incomplete, further delaying our final electrical stuff and countertop installation.

Then our countertop and appliance supplier shocked us with the news that AMEX was not an acceptable form of payment — just as we were making the deposit.

While those were big problems they weren’t anything that couldn’t be solved with some more research, a good attitude, and a malted milkshake from Powells Dairy Freeze in Starke, Florida.

I snapped this picture as nonchalantly as I could. The young mother was sitting directly across from her newborn baby…smoking a freaking cigarette and blowing smoke (inadvertently, I hope) right back into the baby’s carrier.

The reason for the stop, other than the fine milkshakes at Powells, was because we found an alternate countertop supplier in Gainesville, Indigo Green Home store. We were incredibly excited to go because the perfect substitute for the CaesarStone we had chosen was the recycled glass countertops from Coverings Etc.:

…that is, until they rung up at $4600 $ a slab (and we needed 3). $14000 for counters was a little bit out of our budget for this project.

The trip wasn’t a total loss. We put in an order for a bamboo counter for our master bath. That should really add some nice spa-like qualities to the room.

Continuing our upward trend was the flooring company’s surprising 180-degree turnaround on the floors. They went from mismatched, discolored, and dull to deep, mysterious, dark, and glossy. We are extremely happy with the results of the second run at the job.

The living room

Dining room (temporary table)

The kitchen with ADEL birch cabinet doors

A view of the APC Cork plank floor. It’s soft!

Agnes’ studio