Awww....

New Brows!!!

Drum roll please! Behold...my new brows! This is not the best picture of me but, it will do! The point is my eye brows! Finally! I can get up and get out of the house without having to draw my eye brows on. I still feel a need to put on some eyeliner, foundation and blush but, I would feel fairly more confident leaving the house without any makeup on now. And, starting in March, I will finally be able to go swimming without worrying that I will have a bald forehead. The reason I have to wait till March is to give my brows the proper 6 month healing time. And, the chlorine and chemicals in pool water can damage my brows before that time so, I will wait. But, rest assured...when those 6 months have finally passed, I will take full advantage of it!

Affinity Stoneworks

The first and second pictures are of the finished product. The third picture is a close-up shot of back splashes and granite. The forth picture is a great shot of my island. We love the beautiful knot center left of the island. The fifth picture is the kitchen before with the white laminate and no back splashes.

Note: Sorry that these pictures are not in order from before to after. I set them up that way but, that isn't the way the ended up.

And now...our story!
Wow! I have a new kitchen. After 8 years of living here and roughly 5 years, give or take, of trying to figure out what we wanted to do, the hubby and I finally got new granite counter tops and back splashes in our kitchen. We had white laminate and painted walls before. This is our first house so, we didn't really know how much the extras really enhance things until we saw it in other people's homes.

So, since practically the beginning, we talked about having new counter tops and back splashes done. We started thinking seriously about it 5 years, give or take, ago. But, we were stymied by what exactly we wanted. It was between Corian, Granite and Silestone. I spent lots of time reading up on all 3 materials but, if there are 10 good things about each, there are equally as many bad things about each. So, then we narrowed it down to Granite or Silestone. Again...the good and the bad were equal. In the end, Granite won out because I don't like the speckled patterns in Silestone. They can not duplicate the beautiful linear patterns of the Granite in Silestone. So, after a very long time of searches, culminating in frustration which always resulted in the project falling by the waist side, we finally got our acts together and made our granite decision.

It all started around a month ago when the hubby said that this is the year we do the kitchen. The biggest reason is because I am between jobs right now and have ample time to stay home for people to come and do work. So, I set out to figure out which we wanted. Granite versus Silestone. Once I made my decision, I set out to find the pattern. I looked online and found something I thought that I would like and got pricing from a popular home repair company. We were about to pull the trigger and have them come and do the job when the hubby suggested I go to Affinity Stoneworks to look at some of their granite to make sure that there wasn't another granite pattern that I liked better. I didn't see anything I fell in love with at Affinity so they sent me to their warehouse, G&L Marble. I walked through and they pointed out what they thought was comparable to the pattern I found online. It was completely different than what I thought it was. I wanted something rich chocolate brown and it was actually very pink or mauve. I was disheartened and annoyed and left not having found what I wanted. I was about to wash my hands of this project yet again, out of shear frustration. I told the hubby I wanted to be free of talking about and thinking about the project for 24 hours so I could start with a rested and cooler head. Then I asked him to come with me to the warehouse because I did see some slabs that I kind of liked but really wanted his opinion. We went on a Saturday and we finally fell head over heels for a slab. The name was Dunes and it is this perfect mixture of brown, charcoal, copper and tan and has these beautiful and unique charcoal knots throughout the slabs. We had them hold the slabs, which had previously been held by someone else. We also got an idea of what we wanted for our back splashes which was 6" x 6" tiles called Espresso and 2" x 2" inserts called Tantrum Earth. We then had them come out and tear up our white laminate and do the measurements and templates for the granite. I went and helped them place the templates on the granite where I wanted them so they could cut them the next day. The only drama was that we had to live without our kitchen for a week before they could come out and do the install. Of course, that included the sink because we picked out a new granite composite sink and new bronze faucet. That was hard to get used to because we didn't have counters or plumbing in our kitchen for a week. Really an inconvenience but well worth it.

They came and installed the counters and sink but, we still couldn't use the sink until the next day as the glue had to set. Then, the next day, they did the install of the back splash. Whew...that was a long day. They arrived around 9:15or 9:30 AM and weren't done until about 5 or 5:15 PM. We also had the same guys who did our back splashes come back the next day and do recessed lighting for us. Our original lighting was one hideous florescent light above our Island, one recessed light above our sink and one hanging light over our kitchen table. We had 8 can lights installed which really brightens the kitchen and they are so much more modern than the awful florescent light the contractor installed when they built my house 8 years ago. The last thing we need done is to repaint my ceiling. My kitchen is a celadon green and the ceiling is a lighter shade of that green. So light, in fact, that most people think that it is white until we point it out...or you see the difference from the white rectangle left behind from the florescent light.

So, if you live in Georgia and are considering getting granite and back splashes installed in your kitchen or bathroom, go with Affinity Stoneworks http://www.affinitystoneworks.com/ They are brilliant. They are so knowledgeable. Anything I had questions about were answered on the spot. They are all very friendly and really seem to love what they do. And, if their friendly professionalism isn't enough to snag you, their reasonable prices should. We got estimates from 2 other vendors, both chains and commonly known home repair companies, and Affinity's prices were about 70% less for everything: laminate removal and haul away, granite, install, sink and disposal removal and install, back splash material and install and lighting. The estimate we got from the one big chain store was just for the removal of our laminate counters and the granite and install. We can imagine that if we had also gotten an estimate for the back splash, the entire job might have been twice as much or pretty close.

3rd Time is the Charm? Fingers Crossed.

I just got my eyebrows done for the third time. I have read that it can take 3 times for some people before they get the results that they want so, I am not disheartened. In fact, the 2nd time really did take pretty well but, as I said in the previous post, half of my brows were darker than the other half. So, I went in to get my nails done this past Thursday and I had intended to make my appointment for my 3rd attempt and I was going to have her set it up for next Thursday since that would be 4 weeks since my 2nd but, she said I didn't have to wait for 4 weeks. I asked if she could do them then and she said that would be fine.

So, the experience with the 3rd attempt was not the greatest. First of all, it was more painful when she broke my skin. Then, when she got done, I noticed that my left brow was thicker in the inner corner than the right one but, I let it slide. I got home and really gave it a more thorough look and felt really uncomfortable with how uneven they both looked so, I went back to have her thicken up the inner corner of my right brow. She seemed agitated with me and I felt bad about bugging her but, this is my face and these are my brows and, I did this whole thing so that I could feel more confident with my appearance and with my brows. To ignore it and hope that it wouldn't be too noticeable would only have taken a step back and would probably have been a constant point of discomfort for me so, I can't feel to bad if I annoyed her. It is her job to do it right. Of course, that being said, I still feel bad about having annoyed her because I am not the type of person who can just let that stuff roll off my back. I hate to be a pain. All I can hope for is that she was just having a tough day, or a tough time and I was just one more thing that went somewhat wrong and maybe she has since gotten over it.

So, her suggestion this time was to use the Neosporin for only 2 days and then switch to Vaseline. She said that part of my problem is that I have oily skin and the oilier your skin is, the harder it is to get the ink to take. So, basically, if I had done this in the winter when my skin is dry, I would probably have had success sooner. Oh well! I'll survive. Another thing I think that might have caused an issue was that, when I would sleep, the Neosporin would rub off on my pillow or the bed sheet and my brows would end up dry before morning. In order to help my skin absorb the ink, I needed to keep them somewhat saturated with moisture and the Neorsporin needed to stay on. Since they would dry up probably pretty early into the night, they would then start to flake and not enough color would soak in. So, in an effort to remedy that situation, I decided to restrict my movement at night by sleeping on the couch the last two nights and my brows maintained the moisture longer which means that they didn't flake off today (3 days later) like they normally would have. I have a feeling that more color will stay this time around.

In addition to the pain this last time, they bled and oozed quite a bit. I know...gross. Sorry. But, I want people to know my experience so that they know what to expect if they ever want to have this done.

Overall, I may not have had a lot of good to say about this 3 attempt but, I am confident that this will be the last one and that I will finally have the brows I should have been born with.

Hopefully the next time I make a post about this subject, it will be with a picture of the final product and will be a glowing review of the experience! Till then, fingers crossed and wish me luck!