Kitchen Remodel (Part 1)

Hello everyone, and welcome back to our home. If you like my ramblings this will be a good project for you to read through. Grab yourself a cuppa tea, a comfy chair, and sit back and relax. 

Before we begin, let me say this blog post had tears shed over it. I had almost finished typing it up when my young boys came over and started harassing the inhabitants of my keyboard tray. Before I knew it, my whole post had been erased before my eyes and Blogger said to itself, "We should definitely auto save this huge and sudden change." I tried Googling my problem. All the answers were, "No you can't get it back don't be a fool by using Blogger's proprietary editor." The post could not be found in my clipboard, and I couldn't undo whatever voodoo magic my children had cast upon my keys. Maybe this second post type up will be more refined.

Without further ado, I welcome you to step foot into my kitchen, as I prepared for demolition.

Little Henry always willing to get in the way of my projects

I can't tell you how excited I am to be rid of these cabinets. Our neighbor's house was built by the same man and featured a lot of the same styling choices ours does. When he commented on having the same kitchen cabinets we neglected to tell him we thought they were dated, instead we shared with him that the cabinets were disgusting. They were indeed, disgusting. Clean your cabinets once in a while folks. They were also pretty beat up. 30 years of neglect on top of 30 years of fashion dictated that we not keep these around.

I put the boys down for a nap, consulted my husband, and gleefully started pulling the room apart on his go ahead. I managed to get a couple base cabinets out and most of the doors off before he got home.

After he got home from work we took a trip up to Knoxville to visit Floor & Decor thanks to the recommendation of one of his coworkers. I almost immediately fell in love with this tile. It's gray and has streaks of warm brown through it and I'm hoping that the warmth in this tile will keep it looking harmonious with the rest of my warm toned selections.

We got home and Jeffery worked hard on removing some more of the cabinets. This is what it looked like by the time we called it a night.

My plan for the next day was to get the rest of the cabinets down and start pulling up the floor. Henry settled in for a nap (and I am incredibly grateful that he naps well now) and Netflix repeatedly judged my parenting style by asking if I was still watching "Super Wings." By the time Henry woke up I had accomplished my day's goal.

Jeffery got the fridge moved and then tore up the two layers of linoleum that were lurking under the floating click lock.

Then the moment Jeffery had been dreading, tearing up the top layer of sub-floor. In the family room it had been glued as well as screwed down and he did a number on his back getting that up. His goal was to get one sheet up before the end of the evening. This one had not be glued down and he ended up making quick work of it. It all came up.

The nails in the floor had to all be cut off though as they wouldn't move either way through the osb.

He also started down the hallway, but that's a story for another day.

With the flooring out I laid out the tile we had purchased to see how it would look in the room. I also had 40 colors of grout to choose from so I cut the samples into little rectangles and fit them in between the tiles to try and get a feel for how it would look. (That proved to be more work than it was worth)

Arthas always posing for a photo

One of the samples

We hate soffit. Plumbers and electricians tend to really love soffit. It gives them an easy spot to hide their work. I don't know why they think everyone will keep the soffit in their homes forever. If you decide to tear down soffit, be prepared to find hidden work.

 

Our surprises in the soffit were, plumbing, electrical, and the soffit had been made out of osb. Thankfully for my jack of all trades, it was all easy to move.

Jeffery decided the walls should come completely down. 

"Not worth saving," he said. The tone he used led me to believe he was not excited about doing more drywall.

With the walls open it did make running circuits to different places and adding new boxes in a lot easier though. Here Jeffery is moving the original oven circuit from it's spot over to by the garage door where we'll be putting in a double wall oven.

Here Jeffery is cursing the plumber who plumbed the kitchen sink like this. We won't be able to get the depth of sink we want without a whole lot of work Jeffery doesn't want to be involved in, so settle we shall.

Where the microwave was originally hanging we are putting a vent hood. You're looking at the duct work for that as well as the moved vent for sink plumbing.

 

More duct work.

I don't have action shots but with the walls open we ran wiring for under cabinet lighting as well as outlets for an instant hot water heater, and in the kitchen aid cabinet. He also moved the gas hookup so instead of it sticking out into the room it was nestled nicely between the studs.

The last thing before drywall was replacing this little section of osb. The original section was rotting a bit and it sunk down towards the vent. He also pushed the vent a bit more over toward the door.

Here's the first sheet of new drywall going up on the ceiling. First sheet up, second sheet cut. I'll leave that for you to interpret.

But now that the first sheet is up, that means the demolition is over. Here I bid you farewell, adieu. As of writing this post we have 3 days until the cabinets are scheduled to arrive. I'll see you then.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Em