House Progress

We are remodeling our kitchen. Not a big major overhaul, but something we thought was rather simple. We're doing it ourselves.
What we wanted to redo:
--strip the white off the cabinets
--get new countertops
--take out the short part of the U on the left
--put in an island (which also meant taking out part of a wall)
--replace the flooring
--replace the backsplash
--paint the walls

Here's two more before pictures.

Notice the lovely hot pink backsplash? and the two tone cabinets?

This is the wall to be taken out. The island will go in the space that is open in this picture.

We talked and talked and talked. Then, one Sunday afternoon I simply said "I'd just like to know what's behind that wall--to know if we can take it out." Next thing I knew, this began...
Okay, so our wall is coming out!

We wanted to keep power to the island, so we had to frame in a pillar. I saw a picture in a kitchen book and sketched it out to use as a model. The same afternoon we ripped the wall apart, Joel and I headed buy the island cabinet.

Having wires and outlets exposed made Joel anxious to work on the project. In the first week he ripped the drywall off both sides of the wall, framed in a 6x6 pillar, rewired the switches for the pillar and the outside light switch, moved the outlets on the bottom of the wall, moved the phone jack, framed in (support) where he removed the wall, and put up new drywall. Whew!

By the way, he learned electric work from a book he borrowed from the library that Monday morning.

He got heat exhaustion the following weekend, so we stopped working for a week. But, he didn't have to worry about the kids touching anything dangerous.

The wall was removed, reconfigured, and the drywall up--one week into the project (working on it in the evenings).

After a week of resting, I removed the counter on the other end of the open space.

First, the counter came off (not without LOTS of hard work on my part!!!).

Then, we took out the cabinets.
The new cabinet will go in the open space, creating an island. And, now you can walk where the old cabinets were.
Now it's time to strip the white paint off the cabinet facing. Remove doors and then get to work! Here's the first one I did. It's the sink base.


We have also been removing tile. We had to remove the section where the new cabinet would go so Joel could anchor it to the concrete floor. Then, I got to work on some of the main flooring.
This weekend I stripped the bottom cabinets and removed the hideous backsplash. Last night I stripped the top cabinets while Joel sanded the drywall and then textured it.
We're getting there! We'll update you on the progress. The cabinets should be done by this weekend. Then, we have to find flooring and choose our countertops. The end is in sight!