Our story so far: While building inside the 126-year-old Methodist church we were renovating into a home, we were also buying—as often as possible, from Craig’s List and other discount outlets.

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Tyler, the Craig’s List stalker, found a set of kitchen cabinets on sale. They appeared to be custom-painted cabinets in the perfect color of cream we had tried and failed at least once to locate.

He placed a call to the seller and found out someone had already expressed an interest. We were second in line, but if you’ve ever interacted with Craig’s List sellers, you know that could mean you’re second in line behind a serious buyer, so you’ll never hear from the seller, or it could mean you’re second in line but the seller has already told four people that, or it could mean the seller is too meek to tell you it’s already sold, or it could mean the seller is just plain cruel and they’re not really selling anything.

In any case, we wrote it off. “Another one will come up,” Tyler said. He was nothing if not confident.

Lo and behold, the seller called about a week later. “Still interested?”

“You bet. We’ll be there tomorrow.”

Tyler and I spent the next couple hours studying the ad and measuring the space where we intended to put the kitchen, down to the half inch.

We drove the next morning to the seller’s location, the showroom of a remodeling company only an hour away from the church. The kitchen had only ever been on display, never in actual use. It came complete with the kitchen sink and thousands of dollars worth of granite countertop. The ad offered the countertop for free as long as we moved it at our own risk and expense.

The granite countertop looked brownish black in the pictures. I had my heart set on a light-colored Quartz countertop, but if we could get a dark granite countertop for free? Well, call me fickle then. I would be in love with dark granite.

When we saw it in person and ran our hands across the grayish-black countertop (even better), fantasized about washing dishes in the triple sink (or whatever one does with a triple sink), and opened and soft-closed the dovetail-jointed drawers, our hearts melted.

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Tomorrow: What’s it gonna take to make this kitchen work inside the church? Read about it here.