Kitchen Renovation Days 1 to 3

What began as a simple replacement of kitchen cabinets has snowballed into nearly an entire main floor complete renovation.  I’m excited.  I’m nervous.  I’m aching.  It turns out I can swing a mean hammer.

At the end of the first day of our renovation extravaganza, we had taken down the old cupboards and pretty much emptied the existing kitchen.  The only pieces left in the room that would allow the casual observer to identify it as a kitchen were the stove and dishwasher parked in the middle of the room.  (The fridge is over in our living room.)

Ghosts of kitchen flooring past…

Graham did most of the dismantling of the cupboards himself.  My job was to empty the kitchen.  Imagine taking everything out of YOUR kitchen.  Then moving it into your dining room.  Talk about clutter!

On Day 2 we decided to cut a strip out of the drywall on one wall of the kitchen to see what was behind there.  Our hope was that we could create an opening in the wall, a sort of window or pass-through that would make the main floor much more open and bright.  By the end of the day there was a three-by-four foot hole in that wall!

Get this man his own HGTV series!

The kitchen at the end of Day 2.

On Day 3 we moved the kitchen contents which had been sitting in the dining room into the basement.  I turned our laundry room, which has a sink, fridge, countertop and decent storage space, into a makeshift kitchen, since it became apparent that this job was going to take awhile and we’d need a place to prepare meals, wash dishes and generally pretend like we weren’t living in a construction zone.  We also brought our television and stereo from the living room into our basement.  We decided it was important to maintain some spaces in our home that still felt like home, so we’d have a place to retreat to when the work was done for the day.

On Day 3 we also demolished the kitchen floor, which had been covered in ceramic tile.  This was a BIG job, since each tile had to be removed by hand using a hammer and pry bar.  Let me tell you, smashing a ceramic floor to smithereens is a fantastic way to express your pent-up frustrations.  Mid-way through this job Graham brought a huge pick-axe into the kitchen and that made short work of pulling up the tile!  The plywood layer below that had to be removed, too, which was the hardest part, because it was covered in mortar and a wire mesh originally installed to level the tile floor.

End of Day 3.  Pile of scrap in the foreground is the stuff that had to be pried up.

Graham picked up our new flooring yesterday, too.  Here’s a sneak peek at how it will look when it’s installed.

If any flooring could ever be described as delicious, it’s this flooring.

The plan for today, Day 4, is to take a load of construction garbage to the local dump, then we will work on drywalling around the new pass-through and preparing the kitchen walls for painting.  We’re also planning to pull up the existing laminate flooring so it will be ready for the new hardwood to be installed.

I’ve taken two days off from my day job to help out…something tells me I could take the next three WEEKS off and there would still be enough work to keep me busy!

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to put on my steel-toed shoes and safety glasses.

(Check here for our entire kitchen renovation Flickr set.)

(Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my post yesterday.  It wasn’t terribly difficult to write, but it was difficult to publish those thoughts.  I sincerely appreciate all of the kindess and empathy you showed me.)

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