Kitchen Progress | Week Three | Sink & Faucet + Floor Demo

Welcome back to our kitchen chronicles! As the weeks go on the decisions are being made and the pieces are starting to fit into place like a puzzle. I love diving into all these details! 

 

The first week of our renovation, part of a wall came down and I stripped our stairs of their ebony stain. Last week after months of debate and price shopping, I shared all the major appliances that are going into this space. To say we are excited about them is an understatement – our 20-30 year old appliances have all been slowly dying on us one by one and this remodel couldn’t have been more timely! 

All of a sudden the renovation is starting to pick up speed! I’ll tell you about the current state of our house but first let’s dive into the sink and faucet for this space! 

I had the opportunity to check out Elkay products when I was at the Haven blog conference in Charleston, SC last summer, and they were such nice, heavy, solid quality I immediately knew I’d love to use them in our remodel. When the time finally came to get moving on this room, I reached out to Elkay to see if we could work together to show off some of their products, and am so thrilled they saw my vision for this kitchen and agreed to jump on board! This post is sponsored by Elkay but as always all opinions and content that I share with you are purely my own.

All throughout this decision making process, Mark has said he trusts my judgement, but when I ask him his opinion and he says something along the lines of, “No. No. Not that one. Nope. No, YES! That one!” I want him to love using this space as much as I do, so I narrow down the options (because let’s face it, I love to examine all the options as evidenced by my kitchen Pinterest board that is broken down into 17 sections with something like 1300 pins!), and give him the 5 minute kitchen lowdown each day so he can weigh in on the big decisions.

The faucet is a prime example – this is a guy who likes to cook and gets fired up about things like good pots and pans, so despite the old “Whatever you choose” mantra he’s been giving me, I KNEW the faucet that is so central to the everyday use of a kitchen was something he would love or hate down the road. I narrowed down some of my favorite choices and then put them on the kitchen design board (that has been slowly getting tweaked as I pull this all together) so he could get a sense of them along with everything else going into the room. If you are planning any kind of major renovation or room makeover I highly recommend this method of making a design board!  It makes weeding out what works and what doesn’t so much easier!! 

These are the options I threw out to Mark (I had to talk fast in my 5 minute time limit) and as suspected he completely loved one faucet and was adamantly opposed to another one I was so close to ordering, so I’m glad I asked him! 

Scroll through and tell me what’s your favorite combination.

 

-OPTION ONE-

Elkay Single Hole Faucet With Pull Down Spray and Elkay Quartz Luxe Single Bowl Farmhouse Sink in Jubilee

This pretty faucet has a nickel finish much like the stainless steel appliances. I found the navy blue quartz sink (called “Jubilee” on the Elkay site) to be really interesting, especially since we opted out of the kitchen layout that included a navy blue island. I like the bit of contrast this would give an all white kitchen, without being in your face.

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-OPTION TWO-

Elkay Avado Single Hole Semi-Professional Faucet and Elkay Lustertone Classic Undermount Stainless Steel Sink

This faucet and stainless steel sink remind me of those friends who stay after a party and clean up with you while you chat and laugh and maybe dance a little at the sink and probably finish your wine, so that when you wake up in the morning your kitchen is not a wreck. They look pretty but they’re also workhorses, ready to get it done on the daily as well as keeping up with a houseful of merrymakers as needed.

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-OPTION THREE-

Elkay Explore Three Hole Bridge Faucet and Elkay Fireclay Single Bowl Farmhouse Sink 

This faucet and sink combo are the real “lookers” in my book! Can a sink be lovely? Because there is something so charming and gorgeous about a white farmhouse sink, and I also love how it integrates into white cabinetry so seamlessly. It’s the opposite of the navy blue one, not calling any special attention to itself but just being a quiet, simple beauty. 

And that bridge faucet! Mark is not as much a fan of having separate handles for hot and cold as I am, but I love that old-fashioned sensibility with it’s modern pull down spray functionality.

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So…what did we choose?

We went with OPTION TWO, the friends who aren’t leaving until your kitchen is clean! They arrived yesterday and are as pretty as they are ready to work!

In addition to these options, Elkay has tons of others to choose from. Check out their farmhouse sink with interchangeable aprons, and I also adore their old fashioned water bubblers and would have loved one of those installed in my mudroom when my kids were younger and running in and out of the house all day long!

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A quick update on the state of our house!

Since we’re using this time with our kitchen being under construction to finally do all the floors on our first floor, our entire house is absolute bonkers right now!! We started moving EVERYTHING up to the bedrooms or down to our basement – couches, chairs, end tables, lamps, art, curtains – every last thing has to go!

The new unfinished white oak hardwood flooring for the foyer and kitchen will be arriving today so that it can acclimate for a few days inside the house before getting installed next week. 

To save a bit of money during this renovation, we’re doing much of the demolition ourselves. I’ve been slowly prying up the foyer tile since Thanksgiving but it was extremely difficult to remove, so this week I rented a demolition hammer and Mark and I took turns until it was all up. Even with the demolition hammer it’s a workout!! – but a lot easier than chiseling it out one little piece at a time! Here’s a quick view of how it takes up stubborn floor tiles from the plywood underlayment.

 

Tomorrow we are ripping out the kitchen cabinets, old appliances and yes, the BALONEY COUNTERTOPS!! For more in-progress photos of the demo and then, finally, putting it all back together, follow Shine Your Light on Instagram or Facebook where I’ll be posting to stories along the way!

 

Thank you to Elkay for partnering with me to share some of their beautiful products. I did a lot of research and carefully chose  quality brands to use in our new kitchen so I am genuinely thrilled to partner with them on this part of the renovation. I can’t wait to show you the sink and faucet once they’re installed!

I’ll be back next week with some major developments on the kitchen front. In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful weekend ahead and thank you for coming along for the ride with this renovation!