Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Kitchen destruction

Welcome to the project that has been occupying my mind for the last month.  We've been seriously tracking down quotes for our hopeless kitchen.  This one...with the huge soffits, perma-dirty floor and stained white laminate counters:
In anticipation of some action in the kitchen (wink wink), we decided to rip out the upper cabinetry and the tall cab on this wall last weekend:
Yep, we are not keeping the old homemade cabinets like we originally thought.  We started by removing all the doors and loading all the crap into boxes.  Man, I had so much junk in there!
Getting there...
Getting these cabinets off the wall/soffit was an absolute nightmare. 
And when the cabinets were removed, the crazy wallpaper soffit was revealed.  Clearly, someone added this soffit after the house was built. 
Shaun made sure to check in the other side - that appears to be original - to make sure there wasn't anything important in there.  What a good DIYer!
That led to destruction...
....and victory!  Kinda. 
We still had to take care of all this junk.
Somehow, our garbage men took all the cabinetry, plaster pieces, and debris without us even bribing them with beer!  And yes, I know that we should've had masks on while doing this demo, but we didn't have any in the house and decided to just deal with the probable lead paint and asbestos.  I promise next time we will wear a mask.  Next up, figuring out if this is a hardwood floor under the vinyl...since there is a subfloor visible, it's looking promising!

22 comments:

  1. So exciting!! Can't wait to read more about your kitchen plans!

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  2. Sara ... huge job ... don't you just LOVE it!!!!

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  3. What a huge undertaking! I can't wait to see what you have planned because it's always so awesome. Hopefully, you'll throw us some hints/sneak peaks of your ideas.

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  4. OMG!!! What a hell of a mess! What are your plans? Budget? Time frame? Do you plan to do it all? Keep us posted....more posts please!! Know you are busy....but we love your posts.

    B.

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  5. WOW, what a HUGE undertaking. Good job rocking it out. I look forward to seeing the progress.

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  6. Wow! That is a big job! But kudos to you guys and I'm crossing my fingers for you that there's hardwood under there. =)

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  7. If it makes you feel better, we didn't wear masks when we did ANY of our renos. I know, we're terrible.

    Looking forward to hearing more about your kitchen remodel!

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  8. ooh! Exciting! Will you be doing all the work yourselves, or contracting out?

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  9. I have to say that ripping out our own soffits was some of the best demo fun we've ever had in our house. Good times. Good. Times.

    Can't wait to see what you guys do!

    ~Chelsea

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  10. Oh yay! How fun!!! Can't wait to see what you have in mind!

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  11. Lisa, we are going to try to demo all ourselves and then definitely hiring out the repairs and installation! I don't have time or patience to worry about doing it right....

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  12. It's amazing how much demo improves a space! lol. I can't believe how tall the kitchen looks now!

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  13. Oh yippee!!! So excited to follow along with a new room reno!!!!

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  14. WOW. That's a lot of destruction! (In a good way.) I remember seeing something along these lines when we helped my sister demo their kitchen. It's such a huge undertaking, but so worth the results in the end!

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  15. That's great news that the soffits weren't hiding anything important! This is such a big job, but I can't wait to see it come along! Have you ever shared your kitchen? I didn't remember seeing it before.

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  17. congrats on getting started! that was our kitchen a couple months ago. We also had soffits on either side (thankfully no plumbing) and we pulled them down - completely transformed the space! it took us a while since we hired out for trades ourselves (no contractor) but the end is finally in sight. all the best for your reno!

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  18. This brings back a lot of memories from our first kitchen demo. We did it all ourselves and it turned out pretty awesome (forget modesty). It's still one of our most fave projects we've done to date. Good luck on yours!

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  19. Yay yay yay! We demo'd our (non-original) soffits too. Who thought those were such a good idea anyway? I can't wait to see your plans for the new kitchen!

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  20. So excited to follow along Sara!

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  21. Feels good to know we're not the only ones going mask free... I like to pretend that asbestos and lead paint aren't in my 1930's house. Can't wait to see kitchen updates!

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Thanks so much for reading....your comments mean a lot to me!
Sara