After an extended push during the summer for a couple of weeks to get our kitchen renovation done, we were left with a lot of details remaining when the school year began.

As much as I wanted everything finished asap, I made the decision to consciously slow down and not be uptight about things taking longer than I wanted.  The intense non-stop pace of the initial project was incredibly draining and I didn’t want to burn myself or my boys out getting it all finished.

It was a good choice to make, because it allowed me to set things to the side during the busy start of school year period, followed by the non-stop busy holiday period. I was able to do the things I needed to do then without stressing about the unfinished kitchen and bedroom work.

My eleven year old son told me a couple of days ago, “I like how we’re working on the house now. It’s not so fast but it’s not pressured and it’s actually fun.” Exactly.

When I allow myself the time and don’t tell myself I should have gotten it all done already, I enjoy doing the renovation work! My current attitude is that it will all get done when it gets done, and it’s okay for it to take as long as it takes. I can’t tell you how freeing that is.

This past week I glued on laminate strips to the exposed cabinet surfaces in the kitchen and tiled half of the toekick surface (the toekick is the recessed surface under the kitchen cabinets). I planned to finish the toekick tiling today but we ran out of glue. Oh, well, another day. While the kitchen and bedroom are fully functional, what remains are the small aesthetic details like these, and getting these done make a big difference!

I also tiled the backsplash behind the stove late Thursday night. That was a gift to myself, to have something nice to look at while cooking for Shabbos the next day. 🙂

I spent the last of my renovation budget before I bought tiles for the kitchen walls. While I didn’t want to leave the area untiled because water could drip between the cabinets and the wall and also the bare walls aren’t attractive, I’m committed to living within my financial means. That meant waiting until we have more money set aside to complete the tiling rather than putting it on a credit card.

I figured we would silicone the gap for now. I then ‘happened’ to be purchasing a completely non-home improvement related item from a private seller. We were chatting about why she was selling it and she mentioned decluttering her storage area. She also said she had a large number of tiles she was selling. Tiles, hmm??

Though I didn’t expect to find anything, I came back the next day to take a look in the daylight. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had a large number of cream subway tiles that were just the right match for my kitchen. I was able to buy them for a very good price, using just 100 shekels from my weekly food budget to buy all the tiles I needed for the kitchen.

(They were such a good price that I decided to use 400 shekels of discretionary personal funds – birthday money from years ago! – to buy more tiles to tile the porch walls, a project that isn’t necessary or at all related to the kitchen/bedroom renovation but one I want to do for my own enjoyment.)

After buying these tiles I then went to the tile store to find some tiles that would be a focal point to add visual interest over the stove. However, after an hour of looking at every single tile in the store, I still couldn’t find anything suitable (the ones I liked most were also really expensive – as in, 80 – 200 shekels per tile!). The challenge was that I needed something to match the cream of the tiles and the gray of the countertop, but the tiles were either gray and white toned and wouldn’t match the cream subway tiles, or were cream and brown, and wouldn’t match the gray countertop. Dilemma.

A day later I was setting up a tile sample for the porch walls and asked my husband for his opinion. I had purchased nine patterned tiles from the same private seller with the intention of staggering them along the center porch wall, but was thinking of doing a more interesting tile pattern in cream and not using the patterned tiles at all. Combining the two different tile sizes was complicated and would necessitate a lot of tile cutting, and tile cutting would make my just-for-fun project not so fun.

My husband agreed that sticking to only cream would be best for the porch, and suggested I used the patterned tiles instead for the kitchen backsplash. Amazingly, these grayish brownish tiles that I already purchased but had never even considered for use in the kitchen (that the seller told me had been ridiculously expensive) were the perfect match and the perfect quantity!

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The reason I consider tiling the porch walls a personal fun project is that there’s plenty of space to work with no one needing to use that space and no need to be exacting in the details – all factors that don’t exist in the inside renovation work.

Here are what the porch walls looked like before tiling – when we moved here the walls were peeling and horrible. I’ve spackled and they look much, much better – but pleasant to look at they aren’t!

Below is the first wall that I began tiling – this wall was the most unsightly and I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of it before I began! I intend to complete all the tiling before doing the grouting. It’s been so enjoyable to work on this this….the boys came outside to sit with me and asked if they could help. That’s the secret to getting kids to want to work with you – when they see you enjoying yourself they want to get involved, too.  🙂

I have about fifteen meters of tiling to do on the porch –  so far I’ve done about two so there’s plenty left to work on!

Avivah