Taking apart the kitchen
Got out the old screwdriver and pry bars and began the process of dismantling the kitchen. Luckily I had the assistance of Alek my younger brother to help remove the heavy cabinets and store them out in the garage until we had them picked up by our local re-store. By donating them I got a nice tax deduction and they came and picked up the cabinets for free. Also this way they will find a happy home in some other house rather than helping to fill up the landfills.
Here we are about half way through separating the pieces and removing them. Who knew that there would be so many hidden screws and ways of attaching them to the floor and walls? But after a couple of more hours we got all the cabinets out of the kitchen and only managed to ruin the face on one from having to pry up the countertops that were secured with screws and then tiled over. Notice the dropped ceiling in the picture above.
Now it’s gone! Recruited Jonny another of my brothers to come out and help remove the false ceiling that was installed over the kitchen. What a mess of wires and old scrap wood and insulation. Sometimes I think people used to bury all the construction waste into the walls and attics when they built them. It’s always a blast pulling down section of sheet rock and getting about a pound of old shingles dumped on your head. But now it’s gone and we can bring the ceiling height up to a uniform 9 feet throughout the kitchen which I think will give it a much more open feel.
Of course now I need to settle on a plan for the kitchen. I thought I had it all figured out with option #1 but after laying it out and sitting in the space I am now not so sure it’s right. It feels a little too tight and doesn’t have the flow that I really like in a kitchen. I’m really thinking about moving the door into the kitchen from the dining room to go with something more like option #2. Only thing is the dining room has beautiful original wood paneling that I really like. So punching a door through and patching up the hole left by the old door might prove very hard.
Oh joy crumbly plaster!
We began the process of removing the wallpaper from the living room. It started off easy enough being that there were only two layers of wallpaper and no paint. I still think it’s pretty amazing for a 95 year old house to not have a million layers. But as we removed the wallpaper there are sections that are pretty crumbly and are falling away from the lath. Especially were the heating ducts run up the wall joists to the second story.
So now I am faced with a dilemma, do I try and fix the crumbly sections with new plaster or do I just sheet rock over the walls with ΒΌ” thick drywall. Given the age of the plaster I am not super confident it has a lot of life left in it. On the other hand that’s a lot of new drywall that is going to have to be installed and finished.
Hmmm perhaps I will strip a couple of more rooms and see what they look like.
The Journey Begins
This is the first blog entry in what will be an ongoing journey to bring back the charm and turn a 1912 bungalow into our home. The past three places we have lived have been brand new homes with no history to them. When we started looking for a new place this summer we realized that we needed to live in a place with more character, something that had some history and charm.
We found this place on the outside edge of a very desirable neighborhood and after a couple of starts decided that it really had a lot of potential and we connected with it on a number of levels. It had some really good “bones” but was sorely in need of some updating and TLC to make it all feel as one holistic piece.
And thus the story begins on our journey to restore this place in a way that is both authentic to the craftsman style but also give it some more modern accessories such that it is a joy to live in. Most of the work we will do ourselves so this will be quite an educational process and one we will be documenting through this blog.
