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We’ve gone through about 3 demo’s on this kitchen, so I think it’s time to share some design and lighten the mood! We have most of our selections made, not all of them, but the big ones. So here I’ll share what we know for design direction for the kitchen remodel.
The wall is gone! We demo’d the kitchen sometime between Christmas-New Year’s (It all blurred together) and now we are completely gutted. Take a look at some footage.
Whew, I get tired just watching that. It’s a pretty long video, but it was a much longer day I assure you. We were sore, tired and hungry by the end. It was a lot of fun tho – everyone loves to demo amiright? Here’s a slo-mo shot of Joe busting through the wall.
We started by taking out our old appliances. I was bracing myself to find extreme nastiness behind the fridge and stove, but honestly it was way less bad than expected.
Fridge and oven gone. Joe’s sister is getting the oven and I think an old neighbor is getting the fridge for their garage, so it’s nice our appliances get to have a second life. As much as possible, trying not to waste.
Joe looking happy to rip out the old cupboards. Upper cabinets are going to use in the garage so that’s another plus. I am a very dainty demo-er, I’m usually trying to salvage, just like Christmas wrapping paper while opening presents 🙂
We do have a pretty good junk pile going though for sheetrock, old sink and lowers – we should probably get a small dumpster… We were able to salvage a lot of 2×4’s too. Which is like gold right now.
Nobody wants our old dishwasher, I promise!
It actually broke just a day or two before demo!
And now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The Berlin wall is coming down!
The wall came down pretty well. I was tasked with hammering off all the tile backsplash first. Then we went to town with hammers and pry bars on the sheetrock.
Everything in here is double sheetrocked for whatever reason, so it was a bear to rip out not one, but two layers of everything.
And yes, we made certain it was not load bearing or structural in any way. There was some electrical running through the post, which you can see dangling down the middle of the room. (Breaker turned off).
The whole previous electrical situation was kind of a mess, but that’s a topic for another post. Can I just pause and say Wow, it looks more open already!
Goodbye old pantry! I will not miss getting smashed by a door anytime someone came in from the garage.
This was by far the toughest part to dismantle.
Here’s Joe rewiring everything.
A photo dump of some miscellaneous demo stuff:
We found this wedding invitation from 1981 behind our old cabinets! I hope they made it to the ceremony! I thought it was really cool we opened it on January 3rd 2022 and the wedding was for January 2nd.
Pro Tip: Make sure to turn off your furnace while demo’ing so sheetrock dust doesn’t clog up your vents. We are lucky to have a wood burning fireplace, so we’ve been chopping wood like crazy and keeping that stoked.
Our borrowed hot plate for making mac n’ cheese. Don’t judge! At least it’s Annie’s organic. 😅
And because we like to keep it extra real, here’s our dishes situation! In the laundry room sink, complete with ironing board as drying station. It’s honestly no big deal, I grew up without a dishwasher so it’s nothing for me. Really trying not to use paper and plastic, but understanding the occasional paper plate is OK given the circumstances. We will definitely appreciate new kitchen appliances that much more!
Speaking of, here’s our little temporary setup. The kitchenette is coming in handy! We have a mini fridge, toaster, pizazz pizza maker, microwave, crockpot and new this year – air fryer and instapot! (Please send your quick+easy recipes).
We also have this beverage station/coffee station. I also use my nutribullet quite a lot.
We’ve been eating meals at this table in the movie room.
That’s all for now! I think we’ll be ready to share the ceiling next. Then we need to finish electrical and new drywall.
-Leah & Joe
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The secret is out! The kitchen remodel is underway. Well, not exactly. We plan to start early 2022, but we have some groundwork to lay between then and now. I’ll try to keep this update short and sweet, outlining our plans for the dream kitchen.
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In case you missed it, we’re in the midst of transforming our basement hallway into a kitchenette. We have it prepped and ready to install everything. In this post I’ll walk you through our design choices and finishes!
We really never went anywhere, just took a break from sharing updates. But we certainly didn’t take a break from house projects! Consider this our official commitment to share a weekly post, at least up to our current progress. If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s to not make commitments for the future, but this feels manageable and will be good accountability. 😉 This week we are sharing our basement kitchenette build.
Unprocessed October is coming up! And that means a lot of time in the kitchen for me. To help make my life a little easier, I whipped out my recipe book. And to help make your life a little easier, I’m sharing my splash-proof laminated cookbook DIY idea.
This project goes down in the books as not a Pinterest fail! In fact, we love the finished product. It was an overall inexpensive, quick and EASY fix for our quirky little kitchen. I’ll tell you some of the tips I learned and show you my stenciling technique below. I’ll also share what to consider before stenciling your own floor, along with some before-and-after pics.
