Kitchen Tile Backsplash install.

We originally thought about putting up a granite backslash, which was going to be quite pricey. Then we thought about marble tile which was still going to be pretty pricey.  Agreed to let Cacky have the marble tile as I got the counter tops I wanted.  She decided that we could save some money and she could still get the look she wanted and went with white subway tile.
We ended up with White Brazilian Subway tile that we picked up from a broker. Sounds impressive doesn't it? It is the truth, the tiles did say made in Brazil on then, and do we really need to tell anyone that our broker is the esteemed Home Depot?
A long time friend of mine is a professional tile layer.  His website is http://www.jdcustomtile.com/
Could I have tiled the backsplash? Sure I think I could have done it, would it have come out the way it did? Not a chance in hell. I was his helper for this project and learned a lot about the right way to do things. I highly recommend he services and would rehire him again anytime.
Tiling can get messy, I was a little bit concerned about getting thin set and grout all over everything but Jason assured me that it would all be perfect in the end.  I decided to trust him, after all he knew what he was doing.  He was correct, everything cleaned up perfectly in the end.
This is before we started.

During the install

Tile up but not grouted yet.

Finished

Kitchen Cabinets

I am sure some of you have seen these pictures on facebook, however I thought I would narrate a little bit about the process.
We did a lot of research on cabinets. We wanted something that was nice, but not something that was so expensive that we would not see a return on them.  We started out at home depot, it's a do it your self store so it has to be cheap right?  Wrong.... They were going to charge us over double what we ended up paying for cabinets.  The most annoying part about pricing out cabinets is that not all manufactures make the same size cabinets. If you want a quote from 4 different vendors you have to redo your kitchen design 4 times catering to the available cabinets sizes. We eventually ended up going with Marsh Cabinets in High Point NC.  I had to rent a u-haul truck to go pick them up, all in all that process was pretty uneventful.

When installing cabinets always start with the upper cabinets so you don't have to reach over the bottom cabinets to put them up.  You also have to think in 3 demotions. The cabinets have to be level in every way or the seems to not line up. For that you use small wooden shims to space out the cabinets from the wall and from the floor. Below is a picture of the first cabinet that was hung.

The process took longer then I expected, but of course the main man Dan was there to help us through it.

Just for a little comparison here is the place we decided to put the fridge. That door used to go to the 2nd bedroom.

Now it looks closer to this.

After all of the cabinets were installed it was time to go shopping for counter tops.
Of course Cacky and I wanted deferent counter tops, I wanted black granite and she wanted white carrera marble. I did actually win that battle based on functionality. Marble is much softer then Granite so in the interest of longevity (and looks in my opinion) we ended up going with granite. Shop around for pricing on counter tops, they can vary so much, we went of a recommendation, a place that was terrible looking, hardly a showroom, but I guess that means little to no overhead to run the company.

During the cabinet installation process we also installed a dishwasher, garbage disposal, microwave, and gas stove. There was some other supporting work that had to be done such as electrical, drain lines, and feed lines. If you want to know more about that stuff please feel free to ask.