Just after I posted the last update, sure enough the contractors showed up and actually banged out some pretty serious progress.  Guess that’ll show me, huh?

And in the interest of brevity, here are the pics:

Notice anything new . . . ?

That’s right!  The countertops arrived and have been installed, and they are BEAUTIFUL.  If you remember from this post, we went with Silestone quartz countertops, color Niebla, from Home Depot.

Home Depot had pretty comparable pricing to Lowe’s Allen & Roth countertops (Allen & Roth is the Lowe’s brand), but the turnaround time was going to be faster with HD, so we went that route.  And, as a bonus, we had a 10% off coupon for Lowe’s, which HD happily honored for us.  Which meant the original cost of the countertops, $3,156, was knocked down to only $2,840!  Yay for coupons, eh?  The final price per square foot, installed, was only ~$60.  And since quartz countertops are considered a capital improvement, we paid no tax for them (granite is the same, but Corian and other solid surface options are taxable)!

We love the new bar overhang, and once we paint the cabinets, we’re sure those brackets will be just about invisible.

You also can see our new subway tile backsplash in these shots–doesn’t it look great?  It still needs grout (we opted for white), but we love it.

And the new sink is in!!!  It’s huge, deep, and exactly what we wanted.

You may remember the agonizing sink decision from here.

There have also been some other kitchen updates–we had 4 6″ can lights installed.  You can see two of them in this shot . . .

That big light in the middle is actually a sun tube.  And while it may not be the most aesthetically-pleasing light in the world, we do love that it gives the kitchen a ton of natural light during the day.  With four new can lights, and two pendant lights going over the sink, I’ll finally have the bright kitchen I’ve always wanted (there’s nothing quite like cooking in the dark to make you uber-frustrated).

There was also progress made in the half bath . . .

That’s right–the new countertop was installed in there as well.  It’s Donna Sandra granite.  Looks a little brown/peach in that picture, but trust me–it’s basically all different colors of gray.

And the vessel sink is just on there for placement now.  Once the walls and cabinetry’s painted, it will look much improved, I promise.

The last update is the laundry room:

Not much has changed in there except for the walls being spackled.

In the interests of full disclosure, these pictures were all from last week.  A lot has happened since–more tile, paint, a range hood conundrum, faucets, sinks, etc.  I’ll try and get another post up soon so you can see where we really stand at the moment.  But, until then, what do you think?  Do you love the new countertops?