Thursday, January 23, 2014

Kitchen Project. Day 1.

They were three hours late.

This is understandable, since it is one of the coldest winters on record and sub-zero temperatures have contractors busy-out-of-their-minds with frozen pipes and dead furnaces.

Last night we were up well past midnight trying to get everything cleared out of the kitchen.  Had we known they would be three hours late, we might have slept in a bit.

However, they are nice guys, hard workers, and polite.  They got a lot done.

Here are some "before" pictures of the kitchen.

This is essentially the first view I had of the kitchen, when I first entered the house from the garage, through the laundry room.  Lulubelle, upon viewing the scene, instantly remarked, "Why is the refrigerator there?"


Here is the little hallway that goes off behind the refrigerator to the left.  At the left end of it, there are 13" of dead space, which we will be reclaiming, combining with some of the counter run, and making into a broom closet.  This is Shawn's personal coffee kitchen, and he will still have it, although it will be a few inches smaller.


This is what the kitchen looked like from the eating area.  I am no lover of peninsulas.  I've never had a kitchen big enough for an island, but somebody is always trying to crowd a peninsula in where there is not enough room.  You may be able to see that this peninsula ends 30 inches from the front of the refrigerator.  A significant problem.  Had it not been a side-by-side refrigerator, one would not even have been able to open it.  As it is, whoever was looking into the refrigerator always had his backside plastered against the end of the peninsula, and obviously nobody could get from one side of the kitchen to the other while that was going on.


If this picture continued on to the left, the refrigerator would be there, once again.  This is a view of the original cabinetry in the eating area of the kitchen.  We are removing the desk and replacing it with a large double pantry.  We are also removing the soffits.  Well, the construction guys are.


This is a view of the kitchen from the little hallway with the little sink.


This is the corner sink.


This is the stove wall.
Also, those are boxes I was packing the kitchen into for the project.
They have not been around since we moved in.



So today they arrived at about noon and tore the thing apart.  I huddled with the dogs upstairs, listening with trepidation to squeaks, jabs, loud exclamations, and house-shaking thuds, followed by the tinkling of many small pieces of something shardlike.

It was very cold, minus 7 or something like that.  They had to keep going in and out, so it was very, very cold.

If my furnace gives up the ghost, at least I already have contractors on site.  Right?

This is what my kitchen looks like now:


I think it will look better when we get rid of the tile and the soffits.

I will leave you with a picture of Piper that I just found.  It was this Christmas, and he wasn't feeling very good.  Poor baby.






2 comments:

Shannon said...

whoa! gutted it in one day! I'm impressed.

Pipo looks like an amputee in that last picture. hahahahaha.

ruth said...

Yes. I don't know quite where he put his front legs in that picture. He does have front legs, although they are seriously bowed now. His arthritis has been getting him down lately, he is as deaf as a post, and he can't find me when I call him for a puppy treat from six feet away. The other day I was trying to take the dogs out, and I called and called to him. He did not respond, so I walked around the house and found him curled up, sleeping on the sofa. I leaned down close to his head and gently said, "Piper, let's go outdoors." No response. He did not budge. I thought he was dead. I was afraid to touch him, so I stood still, staring to see if I could tell whether he was breathing. Finally I detected some shallow movements of his chest. I very carefully and lightly reached my hand to stroke him, and he groggily raised his head. I was so relieved that he wasn't dead! I hope he survives the kitchen remodel. I hope he survives the winter. He can only be outdoors for about three minutes in this cold before he starts limping pitifully. I need to get him on some heart medication and some painkiller, I think.