Kitchen Remodel

It seems that we are happiest when we are the busiest despite what we say or wish as we go. Last month was our trip to Florida where it was cold (er than we hoped) but perfect for sight seeing... to bad my kids became sick on the way down and we didn't get to do much of that. Instead the week was spent inside our room while my husband was working, that is how sick they were.

This was our one good day, it was the end of the day so our oldest was grumpy.

This month is remodeling our kitchen. We have decided to gut and start over. We were beginning to think it was a mistake until we got the cabinets pulled and noticed all of the "shortcuts" made by those who previously did a quick remodel job.

We have already learned so much just from getting cabinet quotes. Make sure to talk to several people, we had talked to 3, one kept putting us on hold (8 weeks), next answered right away but was very high and later learned some things about the design that would have had us frustrated with the end result, number 3 fit close to our budget but looked like an updated dated kitchen. We went back to number 1 but talked to another representative with amazing results. It wasn't the design of the second consultant but he took us through every choice personally making sure it would be something we would be happy with in the end. For instance we will have to move the fridge if we want to go with one larger than 30 in wide. This is where we were really confused and doubting because everyone else left it in the same place and said we could do a 36in fridge but he took us and showed an example that if it was in a space that size in that location we would never be able to pull out the fridge drawers without pulling the fridge out every time. That was just one of many things he showed us, it really is important to test out how you will reach in and store things in your cabinets. In the end we ordered our cabinets which should be here in 3 more weeks...EXCITED!

In the mean time we are prepping the kitchen by well gutting it. Cabinets took all of Saturday because we had to stop to get some equipment to deal with our plumbing. We are still living in the house so we need water and the current plumbing does not have a shut off valve for the kitchen sink, it will once we are done though. Plus our kids (5 and 2) try to be helpers which of course adds more time to get them interested in something else or to let them help with something not so dangerous. While my husband worked on getting the sink disconnected I tore out the old back splash, removed trim, and peeling paint.

Next to the wood door and on the soffit you can see some of the paint that I have already Scraped. 

Maybe I should explain our house was built in 1962, not terribly old but yet old enough that paints have changed and if you mix oil and latex paints the walls will begin to bubble and crack. The sheet rock is in great shape for the most part only damaged at the parts that are flaky yet the oil layer is sticking. We had to scrape and redo most of our living room, luckily a large portion of this is on the soffit which is coming down.


Make sure to cut a hole somewhere hidden yet gives you a great view of what is inside the soffitt. We were very lucky and it was empty all wires were in the wall. It took a little elbow grease but my husband got it down within a few hours.

Tonight we started to really work on pulling up the old tile. We were hoping that we wouldn't have to rip up the tile to get to the underlayment but since it was screwed down (the proper way) we have to pull it all up before trying to find all the screws and hopefully unscrewing them with success. We ended up getting about half the room done with a few cuts here and there but nothing major.

It is pretty much on every site with information of how to rip up ceramic tile but here is another reminder be VERY careful. It does not just pop up it explodes into teeny tiny pieces. The best way to avoid it is to use caution with every blow and keep your work area clear of debree.