The land down under...

...our kitchen cabinets. Since we bought the house, there have been several issues with our inexpertly DIY'ed tile floor in the kitchen. One of several issues the bothered me was the grout, now fixed! Another was the fact that the tiler did not take the tile all the way to the edge of the toe kick of the lower cabinets leaving a 4 inch span with no tile. All this person did was smear some thinset over the area, leaving the gap lower than the tile floor. This pocket became a place where dirt and dust collected adding to an unpolished feeling in the kitchen:

The dark abyss drew the eye. A black hole for bits of everything. The first step was to clean out the area. Not only by removing the dirt but by chiseling out the thinset that was suppose to go under the tile. All of this came from the space between the tile and the toe kick.

After the area was cleaned, I realized that the tile had been laid over some lovely linoleum. I guess the poorly laid tile is still a step up!

I sliced away the parts of the linoleum that was curling up. to leave a "level" surface for my next step. Daisy supervised.

Then came time for the build-out of the cabinets.

This part involved me channeling my father to build out the cabinet to fill in the gap. A 93 year old house was not level, so I must admit there were some not so appropriate words said in the process. Or maybe they were completely appropriate for the situation.

After hours of jiggering, I finally got the new trim boards installed. It was already an improvement on this:

Next came painting to match the cabinets.

Then some caulk to smooth out the seams.

But there was still the matter of the gap between the new trim and the tile's edge. I purchased caulk to match the new grout color.

Though not perfect,. it is a vast improvement! Here are the before and after shots of the room.

The kitchen is really coming together!