Ta Dah! The Kitchen!

When it comes to remodels it seems everyone is always interested in kitchens and bathrooms more than any other rooms so here finally is our kitchen.  And finally is a good word since we went almost two years without one.  We moved in August 1, 2004 and in May/June of 2006 we had our cabinets and countertops installed.  It took another year and a half before the wood floor was laid.  During those first two years we used half of a two-basin sink, a microwave, toaster oven and electric fry pan for all our cooking.

Two big issues caused most of the delays.  The original kitchen had been turned into a large utility room and a new, modern galley-style kitchen had been built in a narrow addition 7 feet wide and 22 feet long.  We knew from the beginning that we were going to reclaim the original space for the kitchen and that meant taking everything down to bare walls and rewiring and replumbing water and gas.  Big issue number 1.  Big issue number 2 was layout and cost of the new kitchen.  The design took forever and finding an affordable cabinet style we liked also meant lots of research and shopping.

Closets built to hide hot water supply, washer and dryer,
an original window had been closed off on this wall

Looking into dining room and bathroom

They cut the window sill flush with the wall

Another view into the bathroom and dining room

We've torn the closet out and you can see
the original window

Our first night in the house my son-in-law and I tore out the broken hot water system so we would have room to install a hot water heater.  The house was abandoned in winter and many of the copper pipes froze and burst leaving the old heating system unworkable.  Since we were going to forced air and adding AC the system had to be removed anyway.  The photos aren't great because my flash wasn't working but it will give you an idea of the activities of our first evening in the home.

Some preliminary evaluations before the work begins

Pulling out all the control valves

Bye bye complex piping

We framed in this wall because of it's condition and
to add extra insulation

We opened up the original window and
brought in morning light

Since we were starting all over we rewired the entire kitchen adding new circuits and cleaning up old ones.  We also put in new water and gas lines along with a valve to control water pressure.

Moving a line to the opposite wall

Framing a new doorway between the
kitchen and dining room

Moving part of the wall between the bath
and kitchen to make room for
the refrigerator 

New lines to control ceiling lights

Closing off the former doorway to the bath

Framing for sheetrock

What we found under the sheetrock we
had to remove

It would be interesting to know which
era this wallcovering came from

Because of the condition of the floor we removed it down to the floor joists.  This also gave us a chance to clean up the debris left from original construction and accumulated through the decades.  We also tried to level it some in case we needed to crawl around under the floor.  There's barely 18 inches of crawl space so it's tight.  Along the eastern wall we also dug out an additional 18 inches under the kitchen and bathroom to give working space where the water supply lines run.  We have a trap door under the dishwasher for access.

Chris shoveling debris late at night.
Sometimes deadlines are a real pain 

Son-in-law Jon digging out a usable crawl space

A bunch of these lines were moved or abandoned

Getting the hvac ducts out of the way for cleanup

Hammer and chisel to make two floor
levels match

Dig, dig, dig

Now it's down to the bare bones and you've seem how much work it took to get here. In the next post we'll put it all together and hopefully you'll agree with us that it was worth all the effort.