Week 2, Day 1

To be honest, I thought today would be quiet, meaning, they would show up, move the refrigerator from the living room into the garage and then be done for the day.  I was pleasantly surprised when our trusty carpenter spent most of his day here.  Not a lot of progress to report, but some new aesthetics are now visible.

This picture shows the new header into the kitchen that will bring that entry to the same height as the doorway to the left from the hall into the living room. You can also see the front edge of the new soffit that will be 6".  This is so we can have crown molding encompass the room and give it a more uniform look, we hope!

 An additional shot of the new soffit framework.

 Here you can see the new raised height of the door from the hall into the kitchen as well as the lowered height of the opening from the kitchen into the living room. There are still adjustments to be made to the door from the hallway as it will be getting wider in addition to getting taller.

A close-up of the new framing for the lowered doorway.

I noticed the first "oops" of the project today.  This poor wall.  A few years back it actually had a kid pushed through it.  I guess it will be getting patch #2 of its lifetime in the upcoming days.

A shot from the foyer looking toward the back of the house.  Here you can see where the 3 doorways will be aligned in the final product.  

Week 1, Day 5

As we speculated, the only work that took place on this date was cleaning up all the trash.  They did leave behind the island to use as their personal workbench in the living room.

 No more trash where the pantry was located.

 This shot becomes important for two reasons:
1) Notice the large opening between the living room and the kitchen.  It goes all the way to the ceiling currently.
2) Notice the door from the hallway into the kitchen.  It is a standard size doorway.  There are currently 3 openings in the hallway and all 3 have different heights.  That is about to change.

The garbage disposal is hanging out in the living room waiting to be reused in the new space.  I can't wait to talk about a nifty feature related to this appliance in the new space.

A shot of the current doorway into the kitchen area from the hallway.  

A sneak peak of what's happening next.

A hidden surprise that my mother-in-law pointed out.  This was under the previous soffit in the living room. Thank goodness it wasn't any bigger nor did it have any live hornets in it!

Week 1, Day 4

Today was exciting as it brought the complete demolition of the space.  No more island to saute veggies on, no more pendant light, no more kitchen sink!

 Previously home to a fridge and a stove, these 2x4s now hold up a ladder quite well!

 I get excited thinking about the big garden window that will be going into this space very soon!

 The lonely island....

 I snuck down during their lunch break for a progress photo...you can see the ceiling is still intact and only half a wall is gone.

View from the living room.If there weren't walls, other houses and clouds in the way you could see Mt. Rainier looking in this direction.

 Bye bye closet pantry.  I'll only miss you a little...your organizational abilities were lacking my friend.

I need to steal a copy of the Mister's before picture of this shot.  This doorway is growing in height and width.   You can see the wallboard has now been completely removed.

 No more ceiling or pantry frame and the island has vacated it's original home in the space.

Ahhh...the pesky 2nd floor support beam that is the underlying cause of having to have a soffit in the living room.  And now we have photographic evidence.

 And there are the funky beams that shift direction half way through the space.

One last load to be picked up tomorrow!

Week 1, Day 3

Yes, you read that correct: Week 1, Day 3.  We received a call on Sunday afternoon that the work that was supposed to begin on Monday wouldn't start until Wednesday.  We weren't concerned because we had completed 1/2 the cabinet removal ourselves (the laundry room and garage were benefactors,) and we sold the dishwasher, stove, and kitchen chairs already.  Thank you CraigsList and a husband willing to list items and manage the selling of them.  So work began on Day 3 of the project.  They had also allotted 5 days to complete the work for the week, so it also wasn't a concern for us that this will put the whole project on a delay.

This day involved one person working quietly downstairs the entire day putting down floor protection.  We have a dog who is completely blind and mostly deaf so she is quarantined to the upstairs for the duration of this project.  However, having someone downstairs working quietly apparently bothered her enough she paced the upstairs for a good portion of the morning.  At least she slept good that night!

Note: In addition to gutting and redoing the kitchen, some changes are also occurring in the living room: new built-in cabinets flanking the fireplace and a modified soffit/doorway from the kitchen into the living room.

In the top left corner you can see where there's a small drop down soffit that currently exists.  This will be dropped to 6 inches to accomomdate crown molding and make the room look more complete.

Built-ins will flank both sides of the fireplace.  To the left will be cabinets with a wall-mounted TV on a swinging arm to allow people to view it from any location in the room.  The right side will have cabinets that mimic the left plus a floating shelf between the top of the cabinets and the window.

Looking from the living room into the kitchen, you can see where we removed cabinets and the dishwasher and where the existing pantry it located. The pantry in the new kitchen will be in a similar location, but will be part of the new cabinetry.

You can see where most of the floor is now covered. The part in front of the existing island will be covered by the new island so it isn't critical at this point for "protecting."  Funny story: when the couple came to buy the dishwasher, which we had previously moved to the garage, they wanted to see what it looked like inside.  The husband got so excited he also took the microwave, the cabinet it was attached to and came back the next day for the remaining cabinets.  It's always nice to pay things forward!

Looking from the kitchen doorway into the space.  You can see the griddle on the island.  The last thing cooked in this space was sauteed veggies for some enchiladas that night, and extras for omelets, quiche, etc. that can be cooked in our makeshift kitchen.  More on that in a separate post!

The Mister is posing in front of where the microwave and cabinet were prior to us gifting them to the dishwasher family.  We now know how it vented!  Also, the blue swatches behind him are what the wall color will be in the new space.  Exact details on future posts.  

A view from the existing kitchen door way.  This door way will be widened and heightened.  The window is also being replaced with a garden window that will also be in a larger opening.  Living in the NW getting as much sunlight in as possible is always a good thing!

Welcome to Our Remodel

About 6-8 months ago, the Mister and I were on a walk in our area and I fell in love with a new home under construction.  I loved the layout, I loved the lot, I loved the little extras like a shed built into the floorplan that was only accessible from the back yard (HELLO, outside tools stored where they are needed vs in the garage.)  So we started discussing moving.  Would we want to, we have a great lot do we want to give that up, we'd have to start over with our garden, painting rooms, etc.  Then we looked into the builder and comparative homes they had built in the area and we said "HECK NO!"  We had discussed how much additional debt we would be willing to take on for a new house and this house exceeded our number by quite a bit.  For some reason property values are ridiculously high in this area, and for me, it's disappointing especially considering the quality of the homes.  Having only lived in custom built houses for the past 20 years, it's really depressing to me when I see what you pay here for the quality of what you get.  So, we decided to move to plan B: what could we do to our current home to make it "better."  Now you have to realize there is nothing physically wrong with our home, but the Mister picked it out 8 years ago and I don't love it.   It's close enough to being paid for though that I am more than willing to work with it and make it ours vs the standard tract home that it is currently. Plus, we have an amazing back yard, no direct neighbors, and a county park/greenbelt behind our house.  So for city/subdivision living, we have the location location location part at a premium.  Oh, and it's almost paid for...I think I mentioned that.  :-)

So step one in our journey is a kitchen remodel.  We have long talked about wanting to put in a tankless hot water heater (I had one previously and loved it) and we wanted to move to a gas cooking stove.  2 sinks so we can both work without annoying the other was a desire, as well as a double-oven so I can make cornbread more often (since it bakes at a higher temperature than everything else.)  We're going to be doing some fun things with the space, getting some new appliances, having some fun organizational items built into a command center, etc. I will try to update this space often as I expect there will be some days we see lots of change and some days it may be nothing, but I want to look back when this is done and in the years to come and see how it evolved.  I hope you enjoy following this journey a little big, as we are enjoying the idea of what is to come a lot.