The Closet Comes Down and the Kitchen Opens Up!!

Matt told me that he and Ron needed to secure those white wires below, so that they weren't just dangling. I said, "But we're taking this closet out, wouldn't it be better to run those wires above and down into the exterior wall?"  Matt is so great. He just blinked and said okay! They had to tear out the paneling and cut away at some cement board on the wall to the left in order to make a place for the new outlets that would move from where Ron has his hands right now to the outer wall.

You can see behind the ladder where Matt cut a square for the outlets to go.

So the girls figured why not start tearing this wall down?

James got in on the action:

Beth saved these boards for a future project...

And now back to the other side of the wall to remove the dishwasher and the lower cupboards:

Grandma and Grandpa Cryderman came over to help!

Before:

After:

Again Kara and Beth Demo

Here are the before pix:

And here you can see that the cupboards on the left are on the same wall as the closet on the other side:

So the girls removed all of the upper cabinets to the left of the sink but this is only the beginning...

Water!!

Aaaand we have water!!  These videos are an example of the comedy of errors that is typical on our work days. Ron was down in the basement turning on the water and we were watching to see it come out of the sink - make sure you have the volume turned up:

Below is the temporary solution that Matt and Ron came up with so that we could turn on the water without it flowing onto our future bathroom floor. These were washer/dryer hookups that we have since removed:

Beautiful water!! The toilet is still not functional, and we've finally determined it needs to be replaced, but at least we can get water for cleaning from our own faucets now instead of hauling it from home!

Kara and Beth Pull Out Cupboards

Demo is so much fun that Kara and Beth wanted to do more. There is a line of cupboards on one wall that make the kitchen pretty narrow. Here is a before photo (that also shows the multiple layers of flooring that is no longer there...as well as the little peninsula counter on the left that Beth removed):

Here's another look at the wall o' cupboards:

We've had a lot of comments about how "nice" the kitchen looked (well it did, compared with the rest of the house), however, the construction was really shoddy on the updated kitchen. The cupboards are pretty cheap, but worse than that, they were installed badly - for example, the upper cupboards were not supported by anything, they were only screwed into the wall. Usually you will have a support of some kind. We will be removing the rest of these cupboards and re-using a lot of them in the garage. You can see how the far cupboard at the end butts right up against the window. It already makes a huge difference in the kitchen, which you'll see in subsequent posts!

Beth Demolishes Things While Matt is at Home Depot

The other day we were working on the house - which usually means Matt and Ron are doing electrical things while the rest of us clean or help him -- not too exciting. Well, Matt and Ron drove off to Home Depot and Beth looked at me and said, "I want to tear that counter out." I shrugged and said okay, and she went to work. First she removed the countertop, then dismantled the cupboards with the drill and a hammer and muscles. It was so much fun! Matt was surprised when he got back....

And voila! From this angle, removing that cupboard really opens up the kitchen! Nicely done, Beth!!! But we're not through.....