You know it makes me wanna GROUT!

Pick my trowel up and GROUT!

Finish those tiles up and GROUT!

OOOOOO!

You're welcome for that.

But seriously, I finally got around to grouting those kitchen tiles. Like, two weeks ago. Sorry I didn't run to the interwebs to tell you. But it is very exciting! The process was nothing short of terrible (SO messy), but the work was worth it.

I totally fell in love all over again with our subway tiles after I filled in all those pesky cracks. The clean, white grout really defines the blue-gray tiles and lightens everything back up. And the brightness of the grout now confirms my desire to paint the walls the same dark color as the tile. BENJAMIN MOORE, I'm coming to you!

In other kitchen news, we've also (finally) begun construction on the cabinet surround for the refrigerator. I read lots of tutorials (like this one and this one), but in the end, we basically had to just wing it. 

We were unable to remove the old cabinet from the wall...it's seriously stuck up there. I don't think we could remove it without totally destroying the one next to it. But a thin piece of ply covered the old door holes right up and now it's the perfect depth for a cookbook shelf. 

We loved the wine rack idea from the second tutorial so we picked up some lumber at Home Depot yesterday and I whipped it up in less than an hour. Though, let's be honest, we never have wine just lying around. On the semi-annual occasion that I buy a bottle for dinner, we open it immediately, drink 1/3 of it, cork it up, and end up throwing the remainder away a month later. Somewhere in the greater Boston area, my vino-loving parents are dying a little inside. But I'm hoping their Thanksgiving visit might mean this little wine rack has a fighting chance of actually doing its job one day. Plus I think it'll be something any future potential buyers would enjoy.

Anyway--there's obviously lots that still needs to be done. Moulding. Caulk. Primer. Paint. But I have my hopes set on finishing the surround before Thanksgiving, so I'm back into project mode. And we would loove to replace the fridge with a counter-depth, energy-star compliant one in the future. But for now, we'll just keep our fingers crossed that a custom built-in can make our current one look a little less blah.

And just to bring you up to speed, here's what's left before we can call this kitchen renovation complete:

• Paint cabinets
• Replace hardware
• Replace countertops and sink
• Install new appliances
• Tile and grout backsplash
• Install can lighting
• Patch holes in ceiling from old fixture
• Build in refrigerator surround
• Install crown moulding
• Repaint walls dark gray
• Do something with the exposed light above the sink (?)