Latest Project: Kitchen Reno

It has been almost a year since I last posted, but I wanted to try again and keep up the blog a little more.  I know no one reads this, so I really just want it to be a log for myself of all the things we are doing to make this little house of ours a home.

We are currently working on renovating the entire kitchen!  I think I lulled myself into believing that renovations weren't all that bad when we did the bathroom.  The thing about the bathroom though is that it only took two days.  That was mostly out of necessity, and the fact that the bath room is literally the size of a postage stamp.  The kitchen, however, is a much different story.  We officially started on the renovation the Monday of Memorial Day.  I naively thought the renovation would be all finished at the latest by the end of June.  Silly me.  I think we will be lucky if it is finished by the end of July...

For reference, here is a before picture.  Don't judge the mess, the picture was taken as we were emptying everything from the cabinets.  It will just be a more dramatic before and after picture in the end!

We (and by 'we' I mean Ryan) did most of the demo ourselves, to save a little money.  Our house was built in 1950 and I think has had a lot of owners and renters.  The house is fairly well maintained, but it has some really weird quirks due to each owner adding their personal touch to the house.  It took Ryan almost a week to rip out all the different layers of flooring in the kitchen, since there were about 6 different types of flooring!  After our contractor took out the last of the cabinets and appliances, there was even more flooring to remove!  What was strange was that the flooring that was under the cabinets and the stove was totally different from any of the other flooring that Ryan had ripped out.

Down to the original floor

Random flooring that was only under the stove and dishwasher

The original flooring had asbestos in the glue, so we had to leave it and install a new sub-floor over the top of it.  Still, one thin layer of laminate tile and one layer of sub floor is nothing compared to the multiple layers of tiles (who installs tile OVER tile?!), laminate and cement board that was there before!

We decided to keep the tall cabinets that were on the east wall and put them in the basement since we thought they would be great for storage down there.  Unfortunately, the cabinets are 2" too tall to fit with the ceiling downstairs. Tragic. We are going to have to figure out a way to trim them down to the correct height. With the help of our friend Austin, we were able to get them out of the kitchen and store them in the garage for now until we can figure out what we are going to do with them.

East wall without cabinets, but with lots of new electrical outlets!

Now we are just waiting for the electrical inspector to come and approve the electrical changes that were made.  We had to re-route some wires that were in the soffit that we removed, and we also had to add more electrical outlets to meet code.  So we are just in a holding mode right now until he comes.  It is painful to have to sit with a kitchen that is completely destroyed and empty for a week, and not be able to make any progress on it because you are waiting for the inspector to come. Ugh.