What a Difference a Day Makes

Note the gray tubs that have been holding a lot of our food
for the past few weeks.  They have since multiplied.

I ran away briefly, but before I left, I took some before pictures of Phase 2.  You may call the people in the white coats, because we are crazy.  We are taking on the kitchen. I hope that I live through it.

Day 1 of the kitchen remodel happened while I was still away.  I returned home to the complete destruction that you will see below.  Oh, and there is dust.  Lots of dust.  This part makes the bathroom debris look like a rank amateur job. The dust is so thick that you can literally see it floating around, in spite of the plastic walls.

Of course, that may be because the walls in the kitchen are rock lathe and plaster.  And there was tile, then underlayment and then 3 more layers of flooring under that.  They are still taking the flooring off in the kitchen and we are well into Day 2. They might get done today with that.  Ka-ching!

We have debris in the rec room (now our kitchen), the living room and (surprise) the basement.  The plumbers were in yesterday, too. Today it's the construction crew, the flooring guys, the cable guy (completely unrelated) and the electrician will be here soon.  They came at 7:15 a.m..  I am on vacation this week.

I am hiding upstairs and the cats are in the basement where it is relatively safe, but certainly not quiet. In fact, it is so noisy down there that I did my walk outside rather than on the treadmill even though it is not very warm at all.

We made the decision to suck it up and do all this work during the school year so that I wouldn't be committed to staying home all summer.  That was a good decision as I don't see this getting done much before May.  I may turn into a raving bitch by then (at least more raving than usual).

No matter how much you know that there will be dust and debris, you are never quite prepared for the extent of it all.  I mean, my clothes in my closet are getting dusty.  I may even need to give the cats a bath for crying out loud.

So, there are a lot of pics.  Scroll through them and enjoy the before and after images.

And just so you know, when the head guy calls you into the kitchen that always means more money out of your pocket.  Just saying.

 

Same view.  A couple of days later.

The kitties find all of this quite disturbing.

A little history here:  we had this section built when we moved in so that we could have a place to set things.

This is the drawer from hell.  Every single time you opened it, the entire
drawer would fall down.  We finally had to stop using it.

This was the only place for our pots and pans.

I will not miss the fancy little pieces here.

Yup.  The soffiting will disappear and the new cabinets will run to the ceiling for more storage.
These cabinets were built on site which means they were a frame and doors.  No backs, no tops.
The wall was the back and the ceiling was the top.

We replaced the flooring in 2002.  However, we took off the
old linoleum and removed all of the staples.

Yeah, we will be getting a new one of these and it will be more centered.

This is going to my sister as it is fairly new.

The fridge was here when we moved in and our fridge wouldn't fit.  So we had the microwave space and lower cabinet built.

The new pantry will have a motion light.  Yes!

We will have a single, 10" deep sink.  That should help with the canning.

Gotta love the back splash.  It was even uglier before I painted it.

We weren't going to replace the stove but...

So this is where the stove was.

There was this wall paper under all of that.

And this wallpaper, too.  I say vintage.

The original plumb lines for the cabinet placement.

Bye-bye soffit.

One of the 3 additional layers of flooring they found under the underlayment.

Yup, someone thought that these self stick tiles were attractive.

Another layer of flooring.

The newest look in curtains.

Poor kitty.

This is the view from our living room.

So, one of the things that the construction guys unearthed was this note from the original builder.

It has his name, the year the house was built and for whom it was built written on a piece of the board under the cabinet.  Now that's cool.