Kitchen Demolition: Part 4 - The Cabinets

This was the fun part (for me at least), as we could see a lot of progress being made in a short time. We knew that in order to get the ceiling & floor installed and the kitchen painted before the new cabinets arrived, we had to start taking apart the old ones. So here you can see how the kitchen came apart, piece by piece, as we prepared to move into the reconstruction phase of the project (yay!).

Robbie loved using his power drill for pretty much anything - but it made the cabinets come down a lot easier too!

You can see where the refrigerator used to be in the corner, and the cabinets above it with dirt stains.

Another interesting piece of the kitchen was the "wallpaper" between the cabinets and countertop, which was actually just a thin piece of the countertop glued to the wall!

While the countertop "wallpaper" came off pretty easily, the glue left behind was another story.

The cabinet over the oven was left because the exhaust vent went right through it.

Dad and Robbie get ready to take out the bottom cabinets and cleaning up some of the mess left behind.

Lots of demolition and hauling away cabinets! Initially we took them out to our back porch, but eventually they made their way into the garage, back in the "man cave" as Robbie likes to call it. All this work was done on a Friday night, in preparation for more demolition and our first step of reconstruction coming the next day! More on that fun adventure next!

Major Project: Kitchen Electrical Work

In taking out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, we decided that we should put in some lights over the area that would be the bar.

The first task was finishing off some of those electrical wires hanging from the ceiling that were previously in the wall.

Next we moved an outlet from the middle wall (that wasn't there anymore) to the side wall between the dining room & kitchen.

The final piece was adding 3 recessed lighting areas over the "wall" that would become the bar.

This project seemed easy enough, even though we didn't have a clue what we were doing - we were confident in a few of our friends who had experience with wiring. So after a couple afternoons of thinking, discussing, and finally working, we had three light fixtures installed and ready to go (or so we thought).

What we didn't find out until later was that the light fixtures were wired to be on all the time, and weren't connected to any switches! Oops! 

Seemed like a simple problem to fix, so they went to work again, thinking, discussing, and testing different switch configurations to see if they could get something to work. The other light fixtures in the kitchen needed to be replaced as well (square box lights for circular recessed lights), so they started fiddling with those connections too. Before we knew what had happened, we realized one wall of the house had no power whatsoever, and the kitchen lights were permanently on!

Realizing we were in over our heads, we called one of Robbie's student's dad, who is an electrician, to help us get power back to our house the way it should be.

Above the kitchen is an attic crawl space, which became very helpful for getting the switch configuration sorted out.

After several hours of his work over several hot evenings (and lots of those in the steaming attic), he was able to figure out the problem and get the light boxes properly installed to the switches available. It turns out we had several 4-way switches in our kitchen, and quite the complex configuration.

Important lesson learned: Don't take it apart unless you know how to put it back together! (And taking pictures never hurts!)

Mini Project #2: Family Room Plastering

So when we first got the house, we thought the Family room would be one of the first rooms to be done and move our furniture into as we moved into the house. BUT...as I'm sure all homeowners know from experience, things never quite go as you planned in your head!

This is what the Family room (1st room to the left as you enter the house) looked like when we got the house.

The very first thing we did (before we even moved in) was tear down the heavy curtains and curtain rods. This was actually no easy feat, as the rods were bolted into the wall in such a way that on several occasions, there was a gaping hole left in the wall after the rods came out. FUN!! So there was definitely a lot of putty used in this room.

The second thing we did was tear down the wood paneling wall and all the wood trim around the floor. We didn't particularly care for the wood paneling look, and the trim had marker written on it and holes drilled into a lot of the doorway due to some sort of exercise bar contraption (another interesting quirk of the house).

The next thing was to see if the carpets could be salvaged. After moving the interesting chairs left behind (in particular the goldish "recliner" that plugged into the wall), we noticed some rust stains, but my mom did a SUPER job in getting a carpet cleaner machine and making it look almost new!

Then it was time to move into the house, and although we hadn't originally planned it this way, the family room ended up being the throw room for everything that didn't have a home (as well as the kitchen stuff we didn't want to move in quite yet). We didn't get a chance to paint that room because we still needed to put up drywall, so we decided to leave it for storage and finish it as soon as the kitchen was done. (Little did we know how long the kitchen would take!)

Somewhere in the midst of the kitchen project we managed to get something done with this family room, thanks to one of our good friend's superior knowledge of plastering!

Nothing some plastering tape and putty can't fix!

Showing off his hard work

Thanks to our friend, the wall is pretty much ready for painting - now we just have to decide what color! Another thing to consider was this new wall is smooth, while the other walls (and most of our house) has a swirl pattern in the plaster. Another one of our friends suggested we use that wall as our "accent" wall in the room and paint it a different color than the other walls. We're still considering this, as I was thinking it might be neat to have some navy in this room, but thought an entirely navy room might be too much!

While we're eagerly anticipating painting and finishing this room, it has taken a backseat to our kitchen project, so until that gets finished, it's still our storage room!

Kitchen Demolition: Part 3 - The Ceiling

With the wall between the kitchen and dining room demolished, we turned our attention to...the ceiling!

This is probably the best shot of the ceiling - tile that you might find in an old school room, but it wasn't white anymore!

We were advised to try to take down the tile ceiling to see what was under it, in hopes that we could still use what was underneath without putting another layer (of drywall) on top.

But, as you can see, it was quite difficult to get the tile off the ceiling. Robbie was able to take off the easy pieces pretty quickly, but there remained lots of pieces of the tile that were glued to the plaster ceiling.

So after a couple days of scraping...

and scraping...

and scraping!! ...

We got a little testy!  :)

So we had one of our friends come over to look and see if it was "good enough", and determined that the remaining tile pieces were so stuck onto the ceiling, we better just put up some drywall.

Oh well, at least it was entertaining!!  :)

Major Project: Kitchen Demolition - Part 2

After the plaster and drywall was taken down, the next task was the studs. We had several people come in and tell us that it wasn't a supporting wall, but that doesn't always make you feel any better when you consider that one wrong move could send your new house into shambles!

But with some testing, we saw it was ok, and Robbie got out the circular saw to start taking down the studs!

Well - I guess it turned out ok, since the ceiling is still there!

We left a lot of the electrical work until we could get someone to help us with the wiring. The previous owners had so much going on in the house - there were outlets and switches everywhere!

We also decided to widen our doorway, so you can see part of the wall is missing all the way to the floor.

It's starting to open up! After some help from our electrical buddies, we were able to take down all the studs and just leave some wires hanging for lights we'd install later.

You can also see in this picture that we removed the countertop - fun!

Now the room is really starting to open up since you can see completely from one room to the other. You can also tell that the fridge changed places, moving to its temporary home in the dining room. We found lots more layers of wallpaper behind it! However, since we taped off the entrance to the dining room, it was a little challenging to get to the food every meal as we trailed through the demolition area!

Major Project: Kitchen Demolition - Part 1

About one month after we moved in, we started demolition in the kitchen area. Our grand plans were to open up the kitchen into the dining room by removing half of a wall between those rooms.

This little "window" from the kitchen to the dining room inspired us to take down half of the wall!

Since Robbie had the summer off from teaching, one Monday he just went to work on demolishing the wall. He also was able to get some help from one of his students! When I got home from work that day, here's what i found:

One side of the wall is torn off, showing the studs. Yes, that's Robbie with the face mask!

"I'm so strong, I can tear down walls with my bare hands!"

"Look honey! I'm taking apart the wall!"

Yay! We can see through the wall!

While fun, demolition is dirty and dusty business. We put up plastic tarps in the doorways of the dining room and kitchen to try to keep the dust from getting too far into the house, but it still got tracked everywhere. But before things get better, they have to get worse!

Getting Ready for Home Improvement #2: A List

Being in Pittsburgh everyone and their cousin works for Westinghouse or some other engineering firm, so I hear the label "Project Manager" a lot. Well when it comes to home improvements, the improver is the manager. People come over and help out, I listen to their advice and end up getting shocked by an outlet. Improvers manage their own property and seek to make it better. So with that idea in mind we had to come up with a plan on how to renovate our kitchen. (Warning this gets specific.)

1. Remove the ugly wallpaper - it tore off lovely and we used a steamer to loosen the glue. Good friend Derek Bates suggest fabric softener mixed with water. It worked just as well and better on occasion.
2. Demolition: take out 1/2 a wall and convert it into a 40 inch bar wall. This will require moving wiring and removing bulkheads, thus exposing the attic.
3. Electrical work - install new lights over bar
4. Demolition - bye, bye cabinets with countertop, sink, stove, and dishwasher.
5. Ceiling work - install new drywall ceiling after removing the tile and scraping off hardened glue.
6. Electrical work - install recess lighting that replaces the old ones
7. Mudding and prep work for paint - gotta have a flat, smooth surface
8. Painting ceiling, walls, and anything else.
9. Flooring - tear up the old stuff and down with the new
10. Cabinet installation (which must be delivered) along with all the bells and whistles
11. Appliances delivered and installed
12. Countertop templated, ordered, and installed

I feel like I am missing something...............