The Kitchen - Demo begins...

The Kitchen - Demo begins…

For those of you who know Dan and I well, you know that we are NOT handy when it comes to house projects.  I like to watch Fixer Upper and pretend I know what I'm doing.  I know in my head what I want, but I have no idea how to get there on my own.  Although Dan has grown to enjoy my love of old homes, he would prefer a house that is maintenance free.

Here we are pretending we know what we are doing.  We decided to do some of the demo ourselves to save money.  I went to Home Depot and asked what we needed to remove the tiles and they gave me a crow bar and some safety glasses.  We were happy to say goodbye to the fruit and vegetable backsplash.

Next we removed all of the cabinet doors.  This took longer than we anticipated because the hinges were very old and had several coats of white paint on them. 

Although I am very happy to see progress, we have to live in this kitchen with missing doors for the next few weeks.  We have installed baby gates preventing Maddie from pulling everything out of the pantry, but Dan and Benjamin are always eating everything in sight…because it is there in plain sight waiting to be eaten.  

Do you remember the movie The Sixth Sense? "I see dead people"…Well, Every time I walk into my kitchen now I think of that scene where the ghost opens all the cabinet doors.  It really freaks me out! I can't wait for the professionals to arrive to really get this project rolling.  The rest of the demo (L-Shaped Cabinet, Counter, Sink and floors) will happen next week.

We have trusted Jim Sollberger http://sollbergerconstruction.com to do a number of projects on this house and our last house.  He knows all the area businesses and gives us several phone numbers of people we can call for our various projects.  Jim will complete the demo and will also do the backsplash, trim and baseboards.  We may even have him replace the kitchen window.  He specializes in old homes as well as new construction and knows how to build with the type of quality construction that was used back in 1910.

We will be using Showcase Kitchens http://www.showcasekitchensgb.com for the cabinet installation and white shaker style cabinet doors.  I changed my mind on the hardware last minute, so instead of the trendy pewter hardware I will be using a classic matte black iron.  This week we will take everything out of the cabinets, create a makeshift kitchen in the dining room, and paint the inside of the cabinets white. I have stocked up on paper plates and plastic forks.  Our sink, counter and stove will be out of commission for about a week.  Stay tuned for more demo.  It will get worse before it gets better.