The Kitchen Demo

To be 100% honest, the kitchen was not that bad... There were a few things that could have been changed to make it a decent kitchen and give it a face lift (ex. counter tops, sink, cabinet hardware, maybe paint the cabinets...) But we got to thinking about it, and while the cabinets look nice in the picture, they are just from a big box store and actually weren't constructed that well, and did not utilize the space at all.

We knew the tile had to go, and in order to get all of that out, we had to take out the bottom cabinets, which is really the half way point on the whole demo...

 

Since we were not in love with the kitchen, and rather than trying to live in the house through a complete kitchen gut, we decided to go ahead and go back down to a blank slate now!

 So we started gutting the kitchen and getting the tile up and out. We found some interesting things along the way... The kitchen was an addition in the late 1970's adding another 285 sq feet to the house, and making a wonderful large kitchen in the process!  However, when the tile was put in at some point, someone put down particle board on top of the plywood subfloor, then put down Hardi Backer then the tile... There is also french patio doors out to the deck and there was water damage at the sill...

So as you can imagine, the particle board a good 3 feet into the room around the door was just trashed from the water, and was popping the tiles up as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We had quite a few friends and family members help us out with this demo, it was quite the labor intensive endeavor.  So thank you to everyone who worked VERY hard to get all of this mess out of the house, it looks so much better now! Then we pulled out the old cabinets, and we are actually able to use most of them elsewhere in the house. There is a whole corner section and the the uppers to match out in the garage for storage and Dan's work area. Then we have a few that will go into the laundry room for my craft storage area! 

 

We had decided we wanted the hardwood floors to extend into the kitchen and flow through the entire house. Alex, our flooring guy did an amazing job matching up the new wood to the the original hardwood floors. 

 

Now, if you have ever done home renovations then you know there comes a point where you stare at your calendar and think, 'how on earth is this all going to fit together nicely, and what has to come first?'  We have found our selves in this conundrum a few times by now.  The hardwood floors are not ready to be sanded and finished because the walls and ceiling need to be fixed first...

The kitchen can't go in until the floors are sanded and finished, and they are done now... We can't paint till the walls and ceilings are done, but want to be done before the floors get sanded, but then the dust gets everywhere...

Ahh! Its a logistic nightmare. But we came up with a solution!

 

 

Alex came in and sanded and put down 1 layer of stain on the kitchen floors. This seals and protects the floors enough so that the cabinet guys can come in and install our kitchen. And boy do they look beautiful!  What Alex will do when we have him back for the rest of the house is buff these up for the 2nd and 3rd coats so they flow into the rest of the house refinishing.  Stay tuned for the Kitchen Install update!!