Hammers and prybars (not to mention the contractors) were given a workout on Monday and Tuesday as the old cabinets were ripped out of the kitchen and the ceiling and walls were stripped back to the joists and studs. There were no real surprises– no major structural defects or bad wiring to discover. Therefore, the kitchen remodel will be relatively straight forward.
The original kitchen had two doorways, one to the living room and one to the hallway. The opening to the hallway has now been filled in leaving only the archway to the livingroom, which has been widened. The kitchen is no longer a high traffic area, which will be much safer for food preparation. Gone will be the days of trying to cook as people pass through the kitchen on their way elsewhere in the house. The high traffic area will now be through the living room– hence the wider archway.
The downside of the kitchen renovation is of course our lack of a kitchen. We have already been eating a lot of take-out (or take-away, as you folks in Britain call it) while the dust has been flying during the other renovations, so we are pretty tired of eating junk. When the weather is decent (which it wasn’t in April), I can fire up the grill. Otherwise our options are limited.
Cooking and prep area.
The cooking and preparation area was located on the dividing wall between the kitchen and living room. The countertop was small and usually very cluttered, but it was still the best area, ergonomically, to prepare our food. The doorway in the picture leads to the hallway. With the wall filled in, this will be the new location for the stove. The chimney was located behind the wall between the cabinets and hall doorway.
The cleaning and storage area.
This picture was taken from the same spot as the previous one. The dishwasher (in the foreground) is located in a peninsula, which seems like a good idea. However, this location proved to be very awkward for loading and unloading the dishwasher. The glass door cabinets above the countertop were too low, rendering it useless as a workspace. Instead, this became the drop zone for dirty dishes. Therefore, it was always cluttered.
Another view of the sink and peninsula.
The original kitchen was small, no doubt about it, but until we used it for a while, we thought it was well laid out. We were wrong, of course. But the deficiencies did not end with the general design. The electrical was bad, the plumbing was bad, and the construction of the cabinets was bad.
The electrical problems in this house have been well-documented on this site. The kitchen was originally on a single overloaded circuit, and that’s including the fridge, microwave, counter plugs and lighting. I broke that circuit up as best I could by adding a pony panel and 6 separate circuits. As a result, we lost use of one of the counter plugs, and the microwave still managed to pop the breaker on a fairly regular basis. Finally, we will have a kitchen wired to code.
The plumbing under the sink was improper. Although vented, the trap configuration negated the vent. Actually, the vent was completely plugged. I know little to nothing about plumbing, so I had always assumed the sink was sluggish to drain because of build-up in the pipes. The issue was never serious enough for me to bother with, especially with the other priorities in the house. I just figured that the problem would be solved when we remodeled the kitchen. Fortunately that time has now come.
And fortunately the time has also come for new cabinets. I had originally planned to make new doors myself, once my workshop was up and running. We all know that didn’t happen. The old doors were just painted particle board slabs with unfinished edges. And while we liked the colour of the paint, it wasn’t very durable. Any grease and splatters caused stains that could not be cleaned. The new cherry cabinets will look incredible in comparison.
The mostly gutted kitchen.
With the kitchen gutted back to the studs, it is easy to get a feel for what the new space will look like. You can see the outline of the peninsula on the floor above which the glass cabinets hung. There was also an architectural detail above this spot that divided this space into two areas– the kitchen and the eating area. That detail is now gone, and we are left with one big room for the kitchen.
View of kitchen from the new stove wall.
In this picture, you see the archway to the family room addition. You can also get a sense of the clutter we are living with in the family room!