Kitchen Renovation: Funky Finds

Currently, our awesome electrician friend is working on getting the lighting and other electricity related issues straightened out.  We've got our cans in! And he's working to sort the rest of it.  Our house was built in the 60s, proven by one of the funky finds I'll show you shortly, so things aren't exactly as modern as we might like them.

Since looking at a whole bunch of can lighting, and more walls knocked out isn't too exciting, tonight let's go over some of the funky things we found during demo.

*A little background: The previous owner had lived here for 41 years, and was a sort of 'Mr. Handyman' and seems to have tried to do alot of things around the house himself, which may or may not be true, but sure seems like it.*

So, first came a poor little post it:

I wonder if Diane ever got called for dinner?!

Then, there was the bumper sticker....

He was a fireman in town for years.  Which makes me wonder what he was thinking with those wires above the bumper sticker... they were live wires, and they were behind the cabinets. I'm feeling pretty lucky to have survived this long... and this next ones adds to that:

Hmmm, that looks like the quite the burnout there...

And, while smashing out the upper cabinets, we discovered two of these:

We had under mount lighting all this time, and never knew!

Then things got a little gross...

It was some sort of ear drop I believe? We think it might have been for their cats... but needless to say, as soon as I read off what it was, my mom just about threw it across the room.

And, last, but not least, what might have been my favorite find....*drumroll*....

The date the install was originally done(?), we assume the builder, and the town the builder was from.  A neat little piece of our house's history.  Also, we found quite a bit of spare change, including a 1942 "wheat" penny, with some other newer, but still old, currency.

Right now, there's 5 cans in and lit up, with one more that needs to be installed, and then some pendent lighting, and all the un-fun electrical stuff like the stove plug, etc.  The floor should be coming up tomorrow, the tile is getting ordered, and we found out today that cabinets will arrive on Friday!

Kitchen Renovation - Day 3: Window, Lights and Crisis Recap

First, let me say a big HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the mom's, especially mine and B's. Currently, my furry little baby is barking in my face - great mother's day present huh?


Anyway, this morning we were lucky enough to get this:




turned into this:


By way of this staging and this hole, and my awesome father in law:



Currently, B is crawling around in the attic drilling holes into the kitchen ceiling, and I'm yelling at him that they aren't in the right spots. And he's not believing me. But at least we've got one can in, looking all pretty...and...canny?

Lastly, last nights mini-crisis...the first awful thing to happen...

We're busy testing the breakers to disconnect power to the garbage disposal, so we can get the sink cabinet taken out. And really, why would the garbage disposal be on the same breaker as the kitchen? That would make WAY too much sense. (In case your curious, it ended up being on one of the basement rooms breakers) So when we're about 70% through, someone notices that its kind of wet in the room under the kitchen... and by kind of, I mean its raining.



I'm not sure you fully appreciate the situation in this picture, but try. Computer, stereo, lots of stuff we intended to sell in a yard sale, and the Disney photo album of our first vacation were all semi causalities and still trying to dry out. I guess the basement will be our next project?
Oh, and it wouldn't be a home renovation in our house if we didn't find some mold:


I believe I could be heard saying "Oh crap, now he's going to tear the whole house apart." (We've got some fun mold stories, but I'll save those for another time.)

Kitchen Renovation - Days 1 & 2: Demo

We started demo on the kitchen yesterday, and it continued into today. It wasn’t too bad, everything came out, for the most part, without too much drama, and we had some good laughs at the strange finds. At this point, everything but the floor, and the lighting, has been taken out. What used to be my kitchen is looking very..open. So here we go, in pictures:

The first thing we did, pull out the stove. What it looked like under and behind. EW.

Oh look, some under cabinet lighting we never knew existed. We got most of the cabinets out, besides the sink base cabinet, on Friday night.

This morning, this was the view from the living room:

Right now, after a second day of demo, involving some plumbing work, and several trips to our dump (in the pouring rain) we're looking at this:

A far cry from the actual kitchen that was there when I got home from work yesterday, but I couldn’t be more excited about what’s to come.

Tomorrow, we’re getting the new window put in, and maybe pull up some of the flooring? I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough time! This upcoming week we’re *fingers crossed* looking at a whole bunch of electrical and some tiling. We also made a big purchase that will arrive Friday, which I’ll share at a later time, along with some of the fun finds, and the first hil.arous.ly awful thing that’s happened (yea, it only took two days.).

Reason for the Renovation

As I've said, our kitchen has been begging, groveling even, for a remodel since we moved in a little over two years ago. When we bought the house it was something we knew we wanted to do at some point (can't believe we've reached some point!) and with a generous donation from the U.S. government (i.e. our ridic tax return because B refuses to change his status to married), we found funding.


Now before we get into too many details here, I'd like to show you the befores, so you understand, why a remodel is so completely necessarily and I'm so damn excited about it.


Exhibit A:


Where to begin? First, these cabinets were clearly of the homemade variety. Flimsy, not practical, as nearly anything larger than a soup can didn't actually fit on nonadjustable shelves, stupid corner cabinets that reach into the abyss that you have to climb on the counter to reach, and all the other great features you would expect from a 1960s kitchen. But hey, at least they're pretty?

Oh wait, no, they're not. at all. And those blue counters? That stupid, awful shade of blue that I'm pretty sure I said I liked when we looked at the house the first time, it's been getting on my nerves since the day we closed. It was in way too many places in this house, and I've gotten rid of most of it, but maybe someday I'll show you all the places I took it from. But, I'm awaiting the day I have eradicated it from my life.

Exhibit B:
Nasty linoleum, the with most ridiculous looking corner tie in to the hardwood, EVAH. Supposedly it was laying on top of the old flooring, which, circa 1960s, means we're likely looking at an asbestos issue when we tear it up. AWESOME.

Exhibit C:

The dishwasher that is not attached to the counter. When we moved in, there was no dishwasher, but there was a trash compactor. The first thing we did when we moved in was take out the trash compactor, one small row of drawers, and pop this puppy in. Unfortunately, it didn't like being there, and has since been trying to un-attach itself and pull away from the cabinets and counter. But really, when they look like that, who could blame it? The exposed edges are also the BEST crumb catchers ever - so gross.

And for your viewing pleasure, a few more before photos:

The evil corner cabinets.

Just, ugh.

AWFUL blue doors.

So there you have it. The reason for the renovation.

Oh, Hi there.

Nice to meet you Internet.

I've seen you around, but I try not to make eye contact, so you don't try and talk to me.

But here we are, I've finally gotten the courage to say Hi.

So, Hi.

The B stands for the husbands names. The S is my name. Our dog's name starts with an M, but I thought "It's All B, S&M" would be a little much. Although I sure would get some interesting readers, until they realized I'm not exactly their type.

Well that's enough small talk. The real reason I'm here is to share the interesting, or not so interesting, things that happen to us, or ridiculous situations we get ourselves into.

At the moment, its pretty much all about the damn KITCHEN. See, we've got a pretty nice house, I won't lie, but our kitchen? It's just... begging, groveling, for some assistance (sure, i'll throw some before pictures up. eventually). Everything is on order, or sitting in our dining room. There's demo to be done, but it hasn't yet begun (I couldn't resist, sorry).

A basic run down of what we're doing

• totally ripping out everything
• so therefore all new drywall
• new window
• new cabinets
• new (tile) floor
• new (granite) counter tops
• new microwave
• new lighting
• new stove (if i can convince B)

So, we're going to be busy little bees around here for the next few weeks. And there's no doubt something hil.arious.ly awful will happen.

Stick around. It could get interesting.