Kitchen Demo Update

One of the things that really bothered me about the kitchen was the soffit because it hung down in front of the window.  The worst part was that they had some scalloped trim hanging from the bottom of the dark wood paneling blocking out even more light.  I'll try and dig up some photos to share.  Below are pictures of the removal of the bottom of the soffit.

I sawed a line up each side of the soffit to the ceiling and remove the left and right paneling peices.  I was hoping that there would just be the plaster wall behind the paneling.  Unfortunatly, there was electric and some lights in the soffit. 

this is a shot of what is inside of the soffit

I removed the peices and cut them down to size to mount back up over the opening of the soffit. Now that I have a table saw and circular saw, I feel like I can fix anything!

Here is a close up view of the trim that I needed to install once I made the cuts. I used a piece of trim made for framing corners.  I cut the corners on the 45 Degree miter using my table saw. 




After shot with Trim and Moldings installed

 

Kitchen Wall and Floor Fix

The plan in the kitchen is to remove the small built in cabinet to the left of the refrigerator cabinet and then put the fridge in its place.  Then, turn the refrigerator cabinet into a pantry.  When I removed the small cabinet, I was left with a hole in the wall and floor.  The contractors quoted me between $200 and $450 to fix.  I did it for the cost of a peice of plywood and a table saw. 

hole in the wall

peice of paneling from the mud room demo cut down to size to patch the hole in the wall

wall is patched, but still need to address the trim

I cut the trim and moved it over to the right.  The opening that still exists is where the small cabinet is getting moved to. 

I moved over the small cabinet, replaced the fridge (it is still pulled out from the wall about a foot and a half because of the floor hole, and added an oak stock cabinet above.  It feels like the storage space has been doubled.



Mud Room Demo

We finally made the decision and tackled the mudroom.  We had been going back and forth trying to decide what we were going to do with it for a few weeks.

 

Option 1 - Leave the drop ceiling and paneling and just paint

Option 2 - Hire contractor to demo and sheetrock the room

Option 3 - Demo the room ourselves and hire out to sheetrock

Option 4 - Have my dad help me frame it and rock it when he comes down to visit in a week and a half

I ruled out Option 1 for a few reasons, but mostly becuase you can see over the drop ceiling from the dining room.  Here is a photo...

before shot

Before shot - looking into the dining room from the mud room

tried priming the paneling to see if just painting would make things better

all primed

Demo Day

We decided to move forward with the demo ourselves.  My dad is coming up on Aug 9th to help out and said that he and I could frame it and sheetrock it ourselves.   I used a crow bar, hammer and some serious elbow grease and was able to strip the room down in about 4 hours.  I left the horrible ceiling fixture up becuase I needed a light and I am scared to mess with the electric. 

ripping down the cabinets which they themselves were also made of paneling...someone was IN LOVE with paneling in the house!

you can see over the ceiling tiles

room stripped except for the light.  above the ceiling tiles is a junction box and about 9 wires exposed

I found this guy hidden in the wall above the door way frame. Eric named him Ike.   

I had trouble with the thermostat for the baseboard heater.  When I dismantled it to get the paneling off from behind it, it must have turned on and I couldn't figure out how to put it back together correctly to turn it off.  It took me close to an hour to figure out that I had the knob on backwards. 

The only other incident was a cut from a small nail in my thumb which resulted in a very sore arm that I am still recovering from.  I went down to re-up my tetanus shot the next day.  Seriously, the older I get the more it hurts!

I am so looking forward to posting about more fun things like finished cabinets, fabric, tile and flooring choices.  Some fun things to come very soon.

List of Projects

This morning I decided to re-organize myself with a list of projects that still need to go on at the house. 

My most recent shopping trip. Miter Saw, Nail Gun, T-Square, Combination Square, B&D Vice and Table for the saw, Backer Nails for the plywood on the floor, Trim for the kitchen wall repair and 5 tubes of Painter's Caulk.  Four Home Depot employess recognized me and asked how things were going at the house.  I cannot say enough good things about my local Home Depot (W. Norriton, PA).  Everyone knows what they are talking about and are more then willing to help.

To Do: 

1. Gut the mudroom.  Finalize contractors for electric and sheetrock.  I already have them picked, I just need to get the contracts signed and deposits made.
2. Kitchen:  repair kitchen wall, lay new kitchen floor - still deciding on type of floor, remove soffit, replace soffit if necessary, install small cabinets above refrigerator, paint cabinets, replace cabinet hardware, re-assemble cabinets, install water lines for refrigerator, install garbage disposal, paint.
3. Dining Room:  replace ceiling tile with sheetrock, resand floor, refinish floor, install crown molding, demo built in cabinet and create small desk area, wall paper one wall, paint.
4. Living Room:  Install Ikea shelves to look like built ins, address fireplace - no clue what I'm going to do here yet, install crown molding, paint.
5. Stairway: replace ceiling tiles with sheetrock, paint.
6. Upstairs hallway:  Remove drop ceiling, install 2 lighting fixtures in ceiling, replace one lighting fixture, paint, add wall trim in interesting pattern.
7. Ryan's room - Paint, Decorate
8. Owen's Room - Paint, Decorate
9. Bathroom - Address window frame in shower, Install over toilet storage, address shelves and shelf door
10. Master bedroom - Install Crown Molding
11. 3rd floor Stairway - Shore up banister, Remove paneling and frame out ceiling and sheetrock
12. Guest room - Paint, install moldings, Install Plank Floor
13. Office - Paint, Install Moldings, Install Plank Floor
14. Outside - Prune, Weed, Edge Grass, Tear down platform that was built in back to support a child's pool (pics to come)

The Kitchen Cabinet Conundrum

The kitchen has been a place that I have been avoiding for a little while.  There is a lot to do in a rather small space, and most of it is either electric or plumbing...neither of which I have any experience.  One of the current projects that I started a few weeks back and put a nice dent in tonight is the built-in cabinet removal and wall repair. 

We have a built in cabinet right where the new refrigerator is going.  I did some demo a few weeks back on it and ended up damaging a few ceiling tiles as well as uncovered a big piece of plywood behind where I was expecting plaster wall and subfloor under it where I was expecting vinyl.  Truthfully, I got scared and ignored it for awhile. 

So, tonight I had a wave of go-gettedness and pulled the cabinet out from the wall again.  Sorry for the picture quality, I took it with my phone becuase I forgot my Canon. You can see above the space that the cabinet was sitting in.   The floor is some nasty old tiles that are peeling.  I did my best to leave them alone.  The plywood on the wall had to be cut down with my dremel tool and pry bar. 

The dremel came in handy to cut the plywood along the same plane as the cabinet that we are keeping.  It took a little while to buzz through it all (about 50 inches long)./  The end result was good.

Plywood removed from wall.  Gross old fake ceramic tile wall - vinyl maybe?

Another view of the faux ceramic tiled wall and my floor solution.

The floor below the cabinet was about 1/2 an inch lower the the rest of the floor.  It looks like someone layed plywood over some old yucky vinyl tile and then rolled new vinyl tile over it.  I had Home Depot cut me a piece to fit in the space and secured it with HardieBacker screws.  Now, I am ready to lay my kitchen floor. 

The wall will be repaired by cutting a piece of paneling to match what is on the lower half of the wall and running a new piece of trim across the top.  That is this week's project.

Owen's Room

The bathroom and Owen's room are the only rooms in the whole house that don't have either wood paneling or drop ceilings.  I didn't have to even prime the space, other then the doors that I'm updating.  Here are some before and after shots of the work.  The color is Ice Rink, Martha Stewart in Behr paint. 

Before shot during inspection with Owen's little head at the bottom.

Not a big fan of ceiling fans, but in a house without central air, I am sure that it will come in handy.

Nice big window that is painted shut.

My trusty spackle knife came in handy when trying to free the window.

Victory...and a very yucky window sill.

Paint on the walls.

Painting ceilings is the worst job ever!

I am leaning towards a orange and white striped fabric for the window treatment.  I have it ear marked at JoAnn's.  I am going to stop by Steve's Sew and Vac in King of Prussia tomorrow to see what they have in their stock of discount fabrics.  I am also looking into more creative ideas for radiator covers.  It just seems like there could be some really fun things that can be done to that area.  Send up any ideas that you may have or have seen. 

Ryan's Room

Here are the updates on Ryan's room.  Like so much of the rest of the house, Ryan's room has a drop ceiling and awful wood paneling.  We are trying to figure out if we want to remove the ceiling and paneling now.  The issue is that the ceiling is hiding a bunch of electric wires just above it.  We would have to pay a contractor to rewire and hide what is there.  Most of the quotes have come in around $500 just to do this room.  Then there is the cost of sheet rocking it after we demo.  That will run probably an additional $500-$700.  The plaster ceiling and what I can see of the walls arn't that bad, so we could just leave it as the plaster and fill and sand the cracks.  In the mean time, I thought that I would try priming and painting over the walls and ceiling to see what it would look like. 

before pic

before pic - gotta love the outdoor sconce...I can't wait to replace it!

radiator cover...plan on painting it the color of the trim, a semi gloss white called Popcorn from Martha Stewart

primer starting to go up

priming the ceiling as well with Kilz Premium

It really did a great job covering up the dingy white acoustic tiles, I'm just not sure that I'm gonna be able to live with the drop ceiling in here

I've got it all primed and a first coat of paint on the walls - Nurture, Behr.  I think that the room feels a bit too cold though, so I think I may be trying something else soon.  I am envisioning a warm creamy color on the walls with a bright pop of red or orange in the window treatment.  I'll post pics tomorrow of the current room color and hope for some comments.