We remodeled our kitchen

Today marks the conclusion of the second week of the kitchen project.  The brief status is that they’re just about done ripping out old stuff, the structural work on the old house is done, and plumbing is about 2/3 roughed in.  Read on for more details.

This week Michael (the GC/carpenter) installed the support beam as I’ve already posted about, and restructured the northeast wall to correct where it had been compromised by a previous generation of plumbers.  He’s using 2×6 framing in this wall, which will give us more insulation and will push things out into the room just enough that we won’t need to move a heating pipe. He also re-headered the two windows using modern methods.  He alsp puzzled out a route for the range hood vent, since the most direct location would be straight through the post holding up the support beam.

Michael is on vacation next week, so he cleared the way for both plumbing and electrical to finish their rough-ins in his absence. The plumbers made excellent progress this week: they ripped out the old radiators and structure-damaging sink drain/vent, then finished the supply, drain, and vent for both sinks. Next week they need to rough in for the new radiator and kickspace heaters, and run a cold water line for the fridge.

I met with the electrician yesterday to go over the lighting and electrical plan.  The current plan is for 6″ LED recessed lighting for general illumination, LED or fluorescent under-cabinet lights for task lighting, and pendant lighting in 4 separate locations. In addition there’s a dizzying array of outlets and switches required by code, appliances, and best practices.  I was much relieved when, touring the kitchen, the electrician and I seemed to really be on the same page in terms of what makes sense.

In fact, so far I am impressed with the work and just plain common sense of everyone we’re working with on this project.  Being able to trust the tradesmen who are doing this work goes a long way toward reducing my stress level.

The one area that is still a source of stress is that the planning for the 3-season room portion of this project is proceeding at a glacial pace. Given that we first settled on this contractor in November, the fact that we don’t have a permit for this yet is maddening.  But we did receive the final plan in the mail yesterday, so I guess that will make progress soon enough.

Today we see the full extent of the old kitchen joined with the old sunroom… yes, the old bearing wall, and the temporary walls taking its slack, are now fully removed. 

As I may have mentioned, I’ve been taking a fisheye picture from the same location each day there’s been visible progress. Here’s the latest:

As I mentioned on my 365 blog, today saw the framing go up for the pantry closet.  It’s nice to see some con-struction after all the de-struction of this week.

In consultation with our contractor, we think the fibrous layer under that old linoleum is, in fact, probably asbestos.  So we’re going to choose what the previous remodelers of this kitchen chose: encapsulation.  We’ll leave it buried under plywood, which is a perfectly legitimate and legal thing to do. We will install oak flooring to match the rest of the first floor, as originally planned, on top of it all.  This will leave the finished surface of the new flooring at about the same height as the tile floor we removed.

Another interesting archaeological find this morning: one of the soon-to-be-demolished studs of the closet in the ex-sunroom has part of a mill’s or lumberyard’s stamp on it.  I’m pretty sure the rest of this board used to say “<something something> lumber co”.

The bulk of the demolition took place today.  They moved our old fridge and one section of base cabinet into the basement, so our temporary kitchen is now complete.  Then they really went to town on the walls, floor, and ceiling.  They did a nice job of not damaging the plaster in any of the adjacent rooms, and there was a surprisingly low amount of dust left by the time we came home.

Overall I am surprised at how little reconfiguration these walls have seen over their 120 year lifetime. The closet in the old sunroom appears to have been original. All the stud walls that we see appear to have been here from the start.  I’m not seeing much evidence of this room having been a different configuration in the past, except for maybe a closet or small bathroom over in the corner by the stairs. What I do see, though, is evidence of old, abandoned systems: orphaned wiring, what looks to me to be cut-off lead water pipes, gas pipes for gaslights that are clearly original, at least two generations of electrical wiring, and an old stovepipe hooking into the chimney:

The false ceiling in the old kitchen proper is indeed, as we suspected, concealing all the plumbing from the bathrooms on the second floor — as well as some heating pipes — and removing & rebuilding it would only gain us a couple inches of height.  We’ll see if the contractor wants to shore it up in place, or tear it down and rebuild it entirely. One surprise is that there is no center beam — the joists in the ceiling are single boards spanning from one side of the house to the other. These two things taken together mean that I think they’ll have no trouble at all hiding the beam for the wall we’re removing.

As I posted on my Project 365 today, it looks like — under several layers of floor — we may have the original 120 year old fir floor.  If this is the case, and it’s in good enough shape, and there’s no asbestos layer we’d have to deal with, I think we’d strongly consider restoring this original floor in the original kitchen and trying to match it in the new part.

The cabinets are gone.  Tomorrow… the walls!

The kitchen project officially starts tomorrow.  With the exception of moving the microwave & toaster oven downstairs, and packing up the contents of the fridge into a cooler, we are ready!

We had some folks over last night and let them write on the walls… see pictures.  Also be sure to check the Time-lapse, now that it’s grown to 3 frames.

Slop sink was installed in the basement today… and the kitchen sink & dishwasher disconnected, which we weren’t expecting, but whatever.

The sunroom and dining room are empty; most of our first-floor furniture is in the living room.  The plumber comes tomorrow to install a slop sink in the basement. The old kitchen is nearly empty, but the temporary kitchen in the basement won’t be truly functional for a few days yet.  Demolition begins on Monday.