Kitchen Update yet again

The kitchen is looking increasingly done and really, all I foresee needing to be done is painting the base cabinets and the build-ins.

Here is where the kitchen stood in update 4:

usable and spacious, if a little bare

I installed the hood and Carpenter Dan trimmed out the windows,

You can see the tile cutter on the counter above.

Then I tiled the backsplash, which took some time because all I had was this tile cutter and some nippers. The tile cutter is great, especially for subway tile - portable, easy to use, not wet or loud like a wet saw - but it can only do straight cuts. So then for those tiles that needed to be cut around an outlet, I tried to use the tile nippers, which worked well enough for tiles that only needed two sides cut. Those tiles that the outlet landed in the center of and I needed to cut three sides...?  I think I broke close to 25 tiles trying very slowly and painstakingly to cut out one hole.

The broken tiles :( .  Fortunately, they're only 27 cents a piece.

Why didn't I give up after say, 7 tiles like a normal, sane person? I realllly didn't want to have to buy a wet saw (which I ended up doing, but only because I'm going to need one to tile the powder room floor) or even set one up and waterproof all around it just for, like, 3 measly tiles. So I persevered, and I would get really close and right at the end, it'd break right where the X in the picture above marks. After those 25 give or take a few broken tiles, I finally accepted it's pretty much impossible and looked into some solutions that wouldn't require me to buy a bunch of stuff, and realized I could get a carbide grit jig saw blade and attach that to my jig saw to cut the tiles. It worked like a charm, and I felt like an idiot for wasting all those poor tiles, not to mention my TIME and HAPPINESS.

But I got it done and then I grouted.

Carpenter Dan cut the window trim perfectly around the vent hood.

Then I had Carpenter Dan build some shelves to put into the corner for some super trendy open shelving, which I painted, installed, and covered with two protective coats of polycrylic (so the paint doesn't stick to my damp mugs/plates and come off).

a little haphazard display

I think I need some prettier bowls and plates to boldly display on my shelves.

One more little update on the kitchen island:

where?

over here, next to the dishwasher

what's in there? 

it even rolls out!

These used cabinets actually came with a few sets of roller shelves. None of them fit in this cabinet, so I had a piece of plywood cut to size at Home Depot for a new shelf, and installed the rolling tracks onto the plywood and inside the cabinet. Then I wired a new outlet and bought a new microwave to fit inside the shelf (sold the old one off Craig's List) and done. We have a working microwave that doesn't take up any counter space and is safely hidden away. Yay!