Blood, Sweat and no Tears. Part 1 of 2

Mitch and I are expecting a move sometime in the not so distant future. So we decided it was really time to do some major renovations. One of them that I was looking forward to most was the kitchen. It was the project I knew I wanted to do as soon as possible when we knew we were buying this house. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do it until recent. However, better late than never. Even if that means I get to enjoy it for a shorter amount of time than I would have liked.
The original kitchen was pretty terrible.. It has old cabinets, which is not the problem. The problem was that the owner before us who had 'flipped' the house stained them (and stained them a dark, dark color-especially for such a small kitchen). Herein lies the problem, they did not care about the finished product. It was sloppily done, you could see drips of the stain on the front of the cabinets, and they didn't bother to clean (and sand? that happens, or is supposed to happen, when you stain right?) and so it was super grainy due to the dust build up that was pretty much unmistakable. Lame, right? Oh well, like I said i figured we would redo the kitchen pretty quickly after moving in. On top of the crappily done cabinets, we had a dark blue laminate counter top. Really?
Mitch and I order our cabinets from The Home Depot, and I wanted light cabinet colors. Just to make the kitchen seem bigger than it really is. Then we thought we would go with just a laminiate countertop-due to budget. Turns out for the shape of the corner where our sink is, it was cheaper to go real stone. whaaat? Whatever, I'm not complaining!
We went back and forth between having someone come in and install it for us. Just so it was done and over with, and we wouldn't have to stress about it. But Mitch decided he would do it. The cost wasn't worth it for him.
Part 1- demolition!  Which in reality..is not as much fun as it sounds. Lol. He would tear the cabinets apart. I'd haul them piece by piece to the garage.
Part 2- Cabinets get delivered and take up, basically the entirety of the living room. All in their own cardboard boxes and stacked clear to the ceiling fan.

Part 3- putting up the top cabinets. Also not fun. Mitch made it easier by drilling a piece of wood to act like a little shelf/ledge thing, so the cabinet would sit in the right spot. I, however still have to hold it up against the wall while he got it exactly perfect where it needed to be, and drilled everything into the wall.

Part 4- bottom cabinets. I didn't really help with this, but apparently it was hard according to the frustrating gripes I heard from Mitch. For those of you who don't know floors are apparently not always perfectly level, but the tops of the cabinets have to be so the counter top lays perfectly on top. 
Part 5- So much cardboard. Everywhere cardboard. For those of you who have never hauled huge flattened cardboard boxes. It is really hard to grip those suckers. (at least it was for me, Mitch just makes everything look easy. haha.)
Part 6- Live way too long without a counter top because the new cabinets have to be measured after being installed. but they cant come out to measure for days then can't deliver and install for another week or two. (I can't remember exactly how long, but it was entirely too long to be without a functioning kitchen. No sink, no counter top.)
Lastly, Enjoy a new kitchen.

Hunter is the best helper!

 However, we still need to paint and/or do a full backsplash from the counter top to the bottom of the cabinets.