Kitchen Remodel I

Okay, so we have been busy preparing the kitchen & dining room for destruction this past few weeks. I have to say that packing it all up was not nearly as bad as I would have expected. We sealed up about 10 boxes of non-essential items (including dishes) and moved the rest of it down to the makeshift kitchen we created in the basement. You can see in the photo above that we have pretty much everything we would need for most cooking. We keep a jug of water downstairs, use disposable dishes and I wash any other dishes in the bathroom sink. So far, the meals we have eaten have been pretty normal (thank you, Crock-Pot and toaster oven).

These photos are the last looks of the kitchen & dining room. I hope you enjoy them, folks, because these rooms as they appear in these photos are long gone!

This was demo, day 1. The dining room was the first room to go. This space used to be a breezeway/porch between the garage (you can see its outer wall on the left) and the house. We are having the ceiling raised to the height of the rest of the house and the "kitchenette" space will become an integrated part of the final kitchen design. Of course, right off the bat we found out that there will be a 2 foot section of the ceiling (in the kitchenette) that will have to remain as a soffitt because it is supporting the roof. Otherwise, most of the demo seemed to go well. The photo below shows the exposed ceiling beams and attic space above.

This was demo, day 2, in which they removed all the cabinets. Behind one set of cabinets, they found an outlet and a vent. I think I am a little surprised that they did not find worse. Looking at the photo above, you can imagine the upper wall is gone and cabinets on the bottom. As I type this (demo, day 3) they are tearing down the kitchen soffits and plaster ceiling. We will have a consult with an electrician at the end of the this week. I am trying not to get freaked out by the banging, crashing and debris that is on the other side of the plastic door...I am trying to focus on the beautiful new cabinets waiting at the warehouse for us and the other decisions & purchases we still need to make.