The Snowball Effect...

You know what happens just as soon as you get one project done around the house? You start finding other things that must be done. All of a sudden things that looked perfectly fine not too long ago seem in desperate need of redoing now that the new stuff is in place. We're going through this around here. The new floors are done, so we've been thinking that we might need to upgrade a few other things. As you might remember, Derek works in the office of a building supply company. Handy, huh? Yesterday he came home and said that he bought me an early Christmas present: new countertops for our kitchen!

When I was a kid, our kitchen had butcher block laminate countertop. I hated that countertop (Mom still has it today, but she likes it about as much as I did). I always said that someday, when I had my own house, I would not have a butcher block countertop. When we moved in our house nine years ago, guess what kind of countertop the builder put in the kitchen? You guessed it, butcher block. Did I mention I hated that kind of countertop? Well, I've lived with it for nine years, knowing that 1) countertops are expensive, and 2) it was still in good shape, so my frugal self couldn't justify changing them.

But when we put in our new floors, it became apparent that we were now suffering from wood-tone overload. Look at our wood floor, wood cabinets, and wood-looking counters:


Pretty soon, though (maybe as soon as next week), those countertops will look like this:
Its called "Labrador Granite" and its from Formica. Its still laminate, but I think its much prettier than what we have now. In fact, I actually don't think real granite would suit our house. We don't have a big grand house, so laminate will do just fine.
I can't wait to get them installed. I think Derek did pretty well, don't you?