Remodeling houses sucks if you’re living in the middle of the destruction. We’ve been doing this to ourselves since 1998. You’d think I’d figure this out.
But it will be good when everything is done. It always takes way longer than it should, just because that is the nature of the beast.
First project is the kitchen, which means fixing the walls, floors, electric and plumbing issues uncovered by removing the cabinets. And of course no matter how careful the planning was, it entails daily shopping trips. And then fixing other issues like three-way electric switches and moving a bit of plumbing so the ice maker in the freezer functions. We just decided to do those two things today. It would be nice if the cabinets are installed by the end of the day on Monday. But I’m not holding my breath.
Here’s the original kitchen. Our friend who is doing the work had another friend who wanted the old cabinets, so they were removed carefully and have a new home to go to. Yay!
The dishwasher which we already replaced a couple of months ago, is immediately to the left of the sink. When the dishwasher is closed you can’t open the drawer to the left on the side, nor the cabinet under that drawer. So it takes a lot of pre-planning in case you need something in either the drawer or cabinet.
The corner base cabinet is static and pretty difficult to find anything in it, so I ended up removing pretty much everything to boxes just so I can find it. The new cabinet has a lazy susan and will be so much easier to get. The original fridge that came with the house was huge, taking up a ton of floor space that could be better used for cabinet, and so we replaced it with a much smaller fridge.
And now the new kitchen can begin to be installed.
First project was to remove the very ugly subway tiles under the cabinets, and then remove the wall cabinets. There was also a shelf above the window and spice racks, all of which left holes in the sheet rock wall. It feels more open already.
That was pretty much the end of day 1, demolition wise.
New fridge fits much nicer in the space.
Second day!
Removing base cabinets on the peninsula section of the base cabinets. The cabinets were obviously installed originally before the oak flooring was installed and so there is no finished flooring under the cabinets. We will have to install plywood to make the floor even.
Floor has been patched and so has the sheet rock, plus we added a couple of electric outlets to the left of the sink and will put a cover on the one outlet which was directly above the kitchen sink as that was not up to code. The first row of base cabinets is set in place and the original sink replaced so we could have a semi-functional kitchen.
Day 3!
This one shows the plywood patch on the floor. Unfortunate the cabinets do not cover that problem so we are going to build out the back of the new cabinets with a 1×2 framework that the finish back panel can attach to, and the counter top will just be extended out a bit to compensate. This picture also shows the old beam on the left and the new covering on the beam to the right.
At the end of the 3rd day all the base cabinets were installed and we re-used the original counter top until the new one is installed, which will be in anywhere from one to two months from now.
Day 4!
First upper cabinets are installed.
And the doors were also installed on the lower cabinets. This means I can actually put things away!
The dishwasher has been moved from next to the sink around the corner to the left. And now it no longer interferes hugely with anything. Yay! I say that a lot each time something is finished.
Just finishing the cabinets isn’t the only thing that has yet to be accomplished. We are switching out the electric range for a gas range and so there is gas piping to be done this coming week, before Thursday which is when the propane guys are coming to set the tank and regulators. By the end of this coming week we’ll have a fully operational kitchen, just needing finishing touches done (replacing the track lights, installing a range hood over the range, and repainting.