Time Thief

Friday, June 06, 2008

kitchen of yester.....month?

I don't seem to have a lot of pictures of the whole kitchen demo process. But you know what that looks like right? Lots of cloudy picture bits. This demo did have a bit of a twist though. Next to the kitchen is a small bedroom. A bedroom with probably the best light in the entire house. So, naturally, you'd want to sacrifice the bedroom and enlarge the kitchen, right? So that's what I did. Tore it all out. Salvaged as much of the floor as I could. Because, well, this is what the floor looked like when I moved in:



Yuck!

Then after it was all opened up.....it just wouldn't work. All sorts of jogs in the wall (that I knew were there beforehand) made it impossible to come up with an efficient layout. And it was like destination nowhere. It would not have helped the flow of the house. So, I put the wall back. Which was good because some of the rafters were all rotten and saggy and this gave me the chance to reinforce things. And I changed the bedroom closet into more of a "shelving area" so I can have a corner in the kitchen.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, THE LIST. When confronted with a daunting task, I make even more granular lists. This one was after the major kitchen demo was finished. I had to do some things in order to open up the space. Scary things. So I listed them out step-by-step like I like to do. (List on recycled envelope sitting atop dishwasher I managed to sell on craigslist for 30 bucks!)



Speaking of craigslist....the day I demoed the kitchen I took a break for lunch and listed the old range in the "free" section. It was gone less than two hours later. Yay, craigslist!!!

Anyway, look, less walls:



With pipe feature! There is also an added joist or two which you probably can't see here. But believe me, I know it's there because I had to cut all kinds of pipes to put them in. Then I got the flu. And the bathroom nearest my fevered bedroom was out of service. :( Walking down stairs to pee with a 102 degree fever is not fun.

After the size of my swollen brain returned to normal, I brought in my favorite not-free plumbers. They spent about 9 hours here and they hate my plumbing. Especially when leaks appeared in areas they hadn't touched. I did some work after they left and it looked like this (from the dining room side):



But wait! No peeking!! Here we are, back at those kitchen-related-but-not-really-kitchen related things.

This pic of the dining room is from last December.



(Wow, I'm glad this big kitchen thing gives me the chance to repaint everything. I never did like these colors; especially not together.) Anyway....

A temporary wall was built by my occasionally :) helpful boyfriend and sometimes free plumber.



I rented three of these about 2 hours before the rental place closed. Two of them worked. Note to self: always get extras. But aren't they cute?



These little guys were used to jack up the wall/ceiling so it was actually level all the way across. (Even though the ex messed with this wall once before, the sag had only been lifted halfway.)



All level and the first header in. The boy was very excited at this point. He'd never lifted a wall before. He was on build duty, I was on the saw.



Viola!



With all the kitchen junk strewn about, it's kind of hard to figure out what's going on. Come back soon and I'll have drywall shots!!!!

One final note....since the kitchen was opened up, I took the opportunity to add another light in the hallway. It's an odd shape and there was always a dark hole in the back. Thank goodness for the consistency of the Rejuvenation catalog. Aren't they cute? (Hmmm...maybe I should be less sloppy about the trim paint if it's going to show up in pictures.)

3 Comments:

  • How exciting! Can't wait to see it when it's finished. You both sound like you know what you're doing.

    By Blogger C&C, at 5:33 PM  

  • So what is your obsession with corners in kitchens?

    I liked seeing your handwritten list. In this electronic world, it has been too long since I have seen your handwriting. :)

    I am catching up on the house progress but must stop here to try to sleep while the baby sleeps, because when he is awake, I am awake.

    The word verification thingy that i have to type in to post this has "sperm" in it. Weird.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:28 PM  

  • Corner obsession? Am I being obsessive? I just didn't like there being a large wall in what should have been available counter space. Made it feel very chlostrophobic.

    Cabinets in a corner? Yes, huge waste of space. But the counter space! The lovely, deep counter space! Ahhhh.....

    By Blogger SmilingJudy, at 2:35 PM  

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