Kitchen Remodel

Some of you may have heard that we are remodeling our kitchen. The project started a couple of weeks ago when I began taking everything out of all of the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen. I spent about a week going through everything. I took a van load of stuff to the D.I. (I've been going through things in other areas of the house as well). I threw a lot of stuff away. And it took forever to pack everything away. How would have thought that so much stuff could fit in such a little kitchen?

Our kitchen is about 50 years old, and everything is original so this work is long overdue. None of my drawers closed correctly anymore and whenever you shut them wood shavings would fall into the cabinet below. Yuck.

Last Saturday Brian and our dads worked on tearing the kitchen apart. The cabinets were built into the walls (the wall was literally the back of the cabinets) and they were a lot of fun to tear down. But by far the most fun was tearing out our tile countertop and backsplash. Should you ever be tempted to put a tile countertop in your kitchen let me just tell you that you don't want to do it. It is a nasty surface to keep clean. All your food particles get smashed down into the grout. Nasty. The demolition crew worked hard all morning and well into the afternoon.

Do you like our living room/temporary kitchen? Bradon does. He is so pleased that the toaster and microwave are on the floor. I have to make sure that both are unplugged so that he can't do any damage and I also have to inspect each one to make sure Bradon hasn't deposited anything in them that shouldn't be there.

Check out the room now. Without the cabinets it looks really spacious.

Under the carpet and vinyl floor we found another lovely vinyl floor.

Do you like it? I thought about keeping it, but then changed my mind.

And let's not forget the best find of the remodel. While taking out our dishwasher Brian's dad found this lovely little stash under the front panel of the dishwasher. Apparently a previous homeowner thought this was a great spot to hide his/her liquor stash. Bri's dad found a couple of empty bottles, plus these three full ones and some shot glasses. We still have them in the house and I laugh whenever I walk by them. Who knew we were hiding alcohol in the house the past 7 1/2 years?

Brian's dad has been coming over every night this past week to work on fixing the electrical components of our kitchen. Before I only had usable plug in my kitchen. With the new configuration I'll have three! Hooray! Bri and his dad have also been sheet rocking, taping and mudding. Here's how it looks as of tonight:

There is still more mud work to be done and then will come painting, then the floor, the cabinets and the odds and ends. We still have probably at least a week and a half of work ahead of us. I say we, but it's really Brian and his dad who are working relentlessly on this project. I'm just mainly trying to keep the kids out of the way. I prepare breakfast and lunch at home, but it's so hard to think of what to cook with just a microwave that we've been eating out a lot. I thought that would be fun, but after three nights I was already tired of it. It takes a lot of time to go out and get something and I miss cooking and having normal meals together. But it will all be worth it in a couple of weeks when I get to cook in my new kitchen where I'll actually have countertop space to prepare meals. Hooray!