Kitchen Remodel

On Friday we began the remodel of our kitchen. Our kitchen was certainly functional before, though it lacked cupboard and counter space, and the white metal cupboards and drawers were at times a challenge to open, particularly the pots and pans cupboard. You had to pull with so much force that the cupboard would send your hand flying backward by the time it opened. Here is the kitchen before our big mess.

We started by removing the old baseboards and ripping off the vinyl flooring, which gave way and tore very easily -- a quality floor, no doubt.

While I was tearing this up, Matt worked on disassembling a small cupboard area that enclosed old wires and a pipe. Insulation fell down in clouds of gray fluff as he removed boards, and a pile of vermiculite rained down around his feet, falling through another hole into the basement. It was a MESS.
After pulling the screws and nails out of the particle board, we pried this up too. Then Matt had to take his skill saw and cut each old large board down the center lengthwise to keep them from cupping in the future. Notice the hole where the trap door down to the basement used to be.
On Saturday morning, we brought an entire truckload of old insulation, particle board, vinyl flooring, and rusty nails to the transfer station. 850 pounds worth, according to their scales.


Matt spent Saturday putting new subfloor in. He'll be installing a new birch hardwood floor in the next few weeks (whenever he can find a few hours when he's not working on his other flooring side jobs).

We've been playing around with kitchen layouts and have finally settled on a plan. This summer, Matt plans to make our cupboards by repurposing the pine boards we pulled out of our living and dining rooms and planed down. He'll then make concrete countertops as well. I'm excited for the final product, though when we're doing so much ourselves -- let me rephrase that to say that Matt is doing it all himself, with me helping as much as I'm able -- it will be awhile in coming!