Our New Kitchen

Recently, we had a new kitchen counter put in, which ended up almost being a complete remodelling of the kitchen.  Before the remodelling, we had a door and a window at the back of the kitchen, a solitary sink and no counter.  The stove, dishes, toaster, etc. were all on various items of furniture.

We had the door and the window removed and filled in with concrete blocks. (All construction here in Mexico is concrete blocks and/or poured concrete.)  The door was moved about 3 feet over to a place where there had been a tall window before.

Then we had a counter built across the entire back and side of the kitchen with a shelf under it, and a space at the end for the stove – all out of concrete, of course.

At this point, before the work had been finished, and before the wall had been sealed off, we were hit by a tropical storm – about 2 weeks ago.  We spent much of one night mopping up water.  (See picture 2 – notice how wet the new blocks in the wall are.)

After the sun had dried up the new wall enough, the person doing the work for us put tiles on the counter and the wall, installed the sink into the counter (along with the tap and drain) and sealed off the wall, finishing everything – the wall and non-tiled parts of the counter – with a grey stucco. (See picture 3)  We also had the floor under the counter raised 2 cm so it could be used for storage.

Finally, we finished the job by painting all the stucco, which we did ourselves with the help of our 3-year-old son. (See pictures 4 and 5, below)

We now have a wonderful new kitchen with plenty of space to work that is not the kitchen table and is easy to keep clean. We also have enough space for all the dishes and dry food underneath.  We chose plain white tiles, with a brown, blue and yellow traditional, Mexican trim. (See picture 1 – above - and 6 & 7 – below)

For another post about home improvements, see:
Another video blog - My new closet - I made part of it!
Renovation, the Canadian Way