Day One of Demo
Cheryl Hewitt
7 years ago
I'm so pleased with how far we got today with our kitchen demolition. My BF has been running a fever since Thursday, but despite that he hung in there all day. Our friends really kicked it in overdrive to help us out. I can't say enough about how wonderful they are.
Looking from front to back.
^ Opposite view: looking from back to front.
Tomorrow we will move the insulation in the rafters and take down the ceiling, and finish deleting the sofits and the last of the 2x4s from the old pantry and doorways.
:)
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simplifyingmylife
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agosmm5525
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Cabinets arrived yesterday ... demo starts Monday!
Comments (6)Lots of progress this week. Demo, walls prepped, cabinets installed, tub installed, plumbing installed/moved, floor and shower tile installed but not yet grouted. Unfortunately it will take 3 weeks for the Silestone to arrive and they can not finish the plumbing or order the shower glass or shower door until the Silestone is installed since the shower curb and door threshold and half-wall caps will be Silestone. Had we chosen granite or marble our slab would have been waiting for us and this job would have been completed in less than 3 weeks from start to finish. Now it's looking like 5 weeks. Oh well. sharonite - our old vanity was 88 inches and the new one is 90 inches. It has a 15" trash pullout to the far left, then 2 27" sink cabinets with a 21 inch 3-drawer cabinet in the center....See MoreDemo Now Days Away--Getting Cold Feet
Comments (15)We're in Week 9 of no Kitchen and have only had a Temporary Sink in our Powder Room for one week now (last week Friday it was installed)--until then we had to use an upstairs bathroom for doing dishes. For the first 8 weeks we had no water at all on the first floor (PR is part of the remodel). Our layout, like others has the kitchen in the middle of the back of the house w/the FR & Garage on one side, DR on the other side, and the LR/Den/Upstairs in the front. To get to the FR from any part of the house, you MUST go through the kitchen (ditto for getting to the basement). Our Temporary Kitchen is located in the FR. We put up a set of metal shelves and stored the most commonly used items on those shelves (bread on top so the dogs couldn't get to it!) Our refrigerator & MW were moved into the FR and I purchased a one-burner hot plate and Toaster Oven (convection) that was big enough to bake a 12" square pizza. Our kitchen table was also moved into the FR and we put our measuring cups, spoons, etc. as well as some prep tools and glass casserole dishes on the back of the table, stored our smaller pots & pans in a box under the table, and in another box the rest of our prep tools....also under the table. I also used 2 of our TV tables b/w the wall & refrigerator to store paper plates, bowls, napkins and plastic cups & flatware. [BTW...if you have those rattan paper plate holders, get them out...they make eating off paper plates much easier!] We use mostly paper, plastic, and foil items (paper plates/bowls/napkins, plastic cups/flatware, and foil pans). While we use paper/plastic/foil for most things, cooking and serving are often done w/glass or metal pans/bowls. We purchased 2 inexpensive dishpans and use one to collect dirty dishes to take upstairs and later be washed in, and one to rinse out & bring back down the clean dishes. [We still use the dishpans, but now we can use them in the PR downstairs...it may not have a toilet, but at least it has a sink!] FR Access: We had a tile floor put down in the Foyer, PR, & Kitchen. To accommodate us, the "tile guy" put the floor down in phases so that we always had a path from the FR to the Foyer, at least. He was very understanding of the situation and it worked out very well (of course, it helped that he had plenty of time to do the floor since nothing else was going on at that time!) Now that work has restarted, the contractor moves the plastic out of the way in the Kitchen/Foyer/FR doorway so we can access the FR w/o going outside. We do, however, use the outside route while they're working now that the weather has gotten better. And yes, shoes/flip flops are required at all times...as I constantly have to remind our children!!! I cannot wait for our kitchen to be done!!!!...See MoreDemo Day is here! Hooray and Holy C#$P!
Comments (13)Thank you so much for all your tips and support! I truly appreciate it. I know that others have gone through this and survived and seen their vision come alive-so I am hoping we will get there at the end. I walked in after work yesterday and oh my! was it different. All the walls and ceilings down to studs, wires hanging everywhere, and was it HOT! Didn't realize how much heat the attic reflects off. I stood for a long time at the front door trying to see in my head how it will look all together and wasn't succeeding at all. Things look so much better after a full night's sleep. I can see where we are going and not feel like all the $$$ we are throwing in as a waste. Some of you asked about interesting findings from the demo. Nothing cool here-other than a old Beatles trading card. Showed it to my 8 yr old and he just shrugged!! kids these days :-).They also found my missing cutting boards(i use the thin plastic ones for some things), some old knives and placemats. It is amazing how much space was there between the framed cabinets and the pantry for thin things to slip through. Good thing we are doing frameless now! Yes, I found my stash of wine in the midst of all the chaos in the basement. Spent all evening cleaning up the basement and now at least there is a path from one end to the other. Today morning was much smoother for everyone. Hope we will get into a groove by the weekend. Once again, thanks for all the support....See MoreCarrieB - Philadelphia Demo - day one.
Comments (34)The POs in our house had been there for 60 + years and were a large and tight knit family. Part of the reason they sold to us was that they knew we were starting a family and intended to stay. They left sheets of colour copied pictures of their family occasions taken inside and outside of the house under a shelf liner in high closet (they left a note with the pics so I know it was intentional). I didn't find it for a couple of years, but we've since used the pics to help us restore the windows, etc. to match the original. Just make sure they put proper headers above the windows and doors. When they tore our house apart, they found they needed to do this because of different construction techniques used back then. When they took over the old plaster, they also had to take off other boards in order to drywall. Those boards had acted in place of headers, but with them gone, headers were required....See Moremalabacat
7 years ago
PROJoseph Corlett, LLC
7 years agomgmum
7 years agoCheryl Hewitt
7 years agoThanks, guys! That header gave us some pause (even though we had checked things out ahead of time), but yes it was determined to not be load bearing and we were able to take it out.
End of Day Two.
We were done by 1:30 pm Sunday. Amazing. We have awesome friends!
numbersjunkie
7 years ago
anitamo
7 years agoCheryl Hewitt
7 years agonumbersjunkie, I know, right?! These go-gethers were at the house early. In fact, one called to ask if he could come earlier than we had planned. Um, sure. <crazy pants!> And they have skillz!
We did have some funny things happen, like the early bird friend disconnecting the security/smoke/heat detector and the alarm going off. I happened to be in the driveway by the dumpster while it was still going and a neighbor who was walking his dog was looking at the house like, "what the?!" and when he looked at me I shrugged and said, "Oops." On the plus side, we learned that there is no way we'd sleep through the alarm going off and also that there is a speaker on the outside of the house that blares, too. Lucky, lucky neighbors! LOL
anitamo, here are pics of the house from the realtor listing when my BF bought the house almost 3 years ago.
User
7 years agoCheryl Hewitt
7 years agoUser
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoanitamo
7 years agoCheryl Hewitt
7 years agosmm5525
7 years agoCheryl Hewitt
7 years agolast modified: 7 years ago
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