Kitchen Renovation, Step #2

Step 2: Begin Demolition

Miss Step 1?

Step-by-step

Note: This step is best done 36 hours after you've returned from vacation via a red-eye flight and are suffering from severe jet lag and lack of sleep.

a) Around 10 am on a holiday, while still wearing your pjs, loudly declare that it's too hot to work outside and that you're too tired to do any "real work" on the kitchen.

b) At 11:30 am ask your husband how destructive you're allowed to be that day. When he replies that he doesn't care "as long as he can start cooking dinner at 5:30 pm" run upstairs and change into your work clothes. Shoes optional.

c) Use a small crowbar, hammer, screwdriver, needle-nose pliers, and basically any other random tools you can find in the basement (remember - you're avoiding going outside) to begin pulling paneling and trim off the walls. Be sure to de-nail the paneling so you don't stab yourself while carrying pieces. When nails and splinters starts to accumulate on the floor, decide that shoes are actually not optional.
NOTE: If you happen to find a large hole with exposed electrical wires poking out of it when you remove the paneling, break off a smaller piece of paneling and nail it back over the hole for your dad to deal with later.
NOTE x2: When you find yourself stuck behind a giant piece of paneling that has sandwiched you between it and the sink, DO NOT ASK FOR HELP. I repeat - DO NOT ASK FOR HELP. Instead, swear, grunt, and shove at it until it moves and consider your teapot, trashcans, and tools that end up on the floor as you scrape the paneling over the countertops collateral damage for your victory.

d) Remove as much paneling as you can reasonably reach without tearing out cabinets. Tear out cabinets if necessary. In order to make sure your husband feels like he's part of the project, ask him nicely to carry discarded cabinets to the curb for you.

e) At 5:25 pm start sweeping up debris and throwing your tools back in the basement.

f) At 5:40 turn the kitchen back over to your husband looking like this:

Please note the smokey outline of what was likely decorative plates near the ceiling. Yummy.

g) Optional step: Fall asleep on the living room floor while your husband makes dinner.

Project: Guest Room Revamp

My latest big project was brought on by the imminent arrival of three weekends of company, back-to-back.  Of course, the one room that we really hadn't touched since moving in happened to be the guest room.  So the weekend after I finished the big stair project, with two weekends before the arrival of our first weekend of company, I decided to tackle what used to be the master bedroom (when the old owners were here).  

You may be thinking, "I'm sure it was fine and your awesome family that was visiting wouldn't have minded a bit if you hadn't revamped it before they got there." (So maybe that isn't verbatim what you're thinking, but it's probably along those lines, right?) Anyway, let me tell you - it was not fine.  First off, it had been painted the same boring beige prior to it going on the market. No biggie, right? Boring colors aren't the end of the world (nothing against those of you who willingly choose beige as a paint color... ahem).  Second, this guy really, really liked paneling (more evidence here, and here) - you'll see in the pictures below that he managed to build even more window boxes made of paneling. THEN - not only are there window boxes made of paneling in the room, but the contractor who painted the room prior to us buying it, reinstalled the window boxes upside down! So now we have upside-down window boxes made of paneling. Le' sigh.  And, if that wasn't bad enough, we had the itty-bitty-teensy-weensy problem of the paint actively peeling itself off the wall.  Yes - without my help there were actually two spots that had peeled down to the original drywall.

Project: Dining Room Ceiling/Mold sucks

So in my last post I talked about tearing down the paneling that was so liberally applied in our living and dining room areas.  Sadly, when we tore it down we discovered why paneling was so popular in the first place - it certainly covers up the drywall problems! One of the major problems that we discovered was mold. Yuck!

There was obviously a time when there had been some water leakage - thankfully the previous owners had had a new roof put on before they put it up for sale, so wherever the leak was, it should be fixed by now.

Unfortunately - we still had mold. And severe drywall damage in that area.  Ew.

Project: That Paneling has GOT to go.

As soon as the keys to this baby were in our hands, the first order of business was to get that particularly awful paneling off the walls and ceiling in the living room and dining room (well actually the first order of business was to move in, but that would make for a boring blog post... kind of. Move-in actually happened during a rainstorm!).

Back in the day the original owners tore down a wall to a front bedroom and created one large room for the living and dining areas.  In order to differentiate between the living area and the dining area, they apparently decided that sticking some dark wood paneling up to create that divide... which left us with one long room with a seemingly random application of paneling at one end which you would be able to see here if we hadn't been so gung-ho to get started and actually taken a before shot. Whoops.  Here is another shot of the ceiling paneling for your viewing pleasure instead:

Sweet chandelier too, right?

And a shot of the random wall of paneling in the living room. I'm guessing they thought it would balance the space out? Or maybe they were just hoping it would?

The window boxes are also made out of... wait for it... paneling!

Yep. You can probably see the problem here.  So J and I went to town thinking all we would need to do is pop a few small nails, peel that paneling away, repaint, and voila new dining room and living room!  Easy peesy, right?