Our Kitchen Reno | Demo!!!!

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Demo-Day-2-13Well I’ve brought you pretty much up to date on where we are with our Kitchen Reno! We took Liam up to Idyllwild Summer Arts Academy on Sunday and Monday we started demo! We started by clearing space in the family room:

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because our cabinets got delivered!!!! Can you believe this is a whole kitchen’s worth of cabinets???

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Then, I started packing up the kitchen while hubby started knocking stuff down. We discovered a couple of electrical lines that hubby has to deal with. Here’s some electric line that goes up to our bathroom. Behind those holes in the wall is a huge wooden beam that holds the house up, so we can’t push that through the wall.

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Over on the baking wall we discovered that the kitchen originally had the electric stove on this wall, the tall cabinet had a false back so that the power from the old installation place could run up the back, into the ceiling and then down where the oven and cooktop was located.

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By the end of the day 1, all the upper cabinets were gone, and some problem parts were discovered.

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Day 2, while Andrew and Logan took a truckload of broken up cabinet boxes, I measured out where the cabinets would go from the plan and marked it on the walls. That way we could see where drywall patching would need to be done and where it would be hidding behind the cabinets. Here’s that electrical conduit, luckily it will be behind the cabinets, just barely!

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Andrew cut a slot in the drywall and the conduit just barely fit in there. The cabinets won’t be installed all the way up to the ceiling, but there will be molding up there which should hide that last little bit. Fingers crossed!

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We then continued to dismantle the cabinets. The boxes of the cabinets, because they’re site build, have to be ripped apart (or they fall apart!) to remove them. BUT! The doors, drawers, sink and counters are going to Habitat for Humanity. They’ll even come pick it up, double win! 🙂

Here’s the baking wall completely empty:

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And the stove wall too:

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What’s that old saying? “No plan survives contact with the enemy”? Well, after I marked the location of the new hood so we could figure out what needed spackling in the ceiling, Andrew took a look at the ducting: (and BTW, is there anything sexier than a hubby doing home renovations??? 😉 )

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Turns out we can’t move it very far before it hits a metal beam…so the location of the cabinets are going to have to switch:

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The larger size cabinet is 24″, the smaller is 18″. Of course, it would have been great if Ikea made a 21″ cabinet with drawers, but they don’t. I had originally placed the large cabinet on the left side to push the cooktop away from the traffic zone in front of the pantry door. But flipping them we gain 2 advantages: 1) the larger cabinet holds the things we’ll access more frequently, so when it’s on the right it’ll be easier to get to and 2) because there’s a 2″ spacer on the left side, it will help balance the smaller cabinet and makde the hood close to center on the wall. So in retrospect, I’m glad we’re going to make the switch!

We ended the day at the hardware stores, getting some electrical doo dads and looking at under cabinet lighting options. Whoo whee that stuff is expensive! We finally decided on something that was the cheapest LED option, fingers crossed we can make that all work.

I had enough energy left at the end of the day to cook! We had some awesome tomatoes from Logan’s garden that needed to be eaten, and lots of leftover pizza toppings from the party last Saturday, so I cooked a fresh tomato sauce and then some whole wheat spaghetti on the burner on our grill, and by golly, made a delicious dinner!

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So at the end of day 2, here’s where we stand:
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And the contents of the kitchen are EVERYWHERE ELSE! Ahhhhhh!

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But they won’t be there for long, so I’m gonna pay it no attention and keep plugging away!!!!

One Response

  1. You are to be commended! This is hard work but so worth it in the end! And did I see your favorite color…lime green? That will keep you pushing through! Cannot wait to see the results of all your hard work!…