Reno Week 2

When we left off last week this is how the kitchen and family and dining rooms were looking:

On Monday the contractor told us that there was more flooring in the kitchen that has to come up. Turns out there was a thin layer of plywood covering some old linoleum. It took Dave and I an hour to get this much of the plywood up on Monday night. It was coming up in little tiny splinters and there were nails everywhere. Nails. So. Many. Nails.

We never would have gotten it all up without a lot of great help from Becky, Mia and Matt!

It really took us all week to get all the flooring up. Did I mention that They used approximately 1 million nails? No rhyme or reason, not in a straight line or anything, just a gazillion of them all over the place. And they don't just come out much of the time because they're rusty and the heads bend so we had to really work to get them all out. 

See? The floor looks like Baby Swiss cheese!

We got most of the underlayment up on Saturday with the help of some nice toxic chemicals. There are a few really stubborn pieces we'll have to keep battling. Oh and there are a few more nails to get out. But there's enough done that the contractor can come in to run the water line and put up the last piece of new drywall.  

In the meantime, the cabinets were delivered. I have no idea how they got his behemoth (the pantry in the middle) through the door! It's massive. And it's exciting to see them here. 

We're learning to live in one room which means putting the laundry away as soon as it's washed and stuff like that. Maybe those habits will stick after the reno too?  Yeah, probably not... When this is all done we'll be so happy to spread out and to eat at our dining room table and sit on a couch and be able to live a little more freely. For now, we're just looking at every day as an adventure. 

Reno Part 1

We've hated this kitchen since before we moved in and it's time to say goodbye! Yesterday was demo day and it was exhausting and fabulous. And there's no going back now. So, here we begin our renovation journey. I'll refer to the previous owners as "They" since I don't have anything nice to say about them. It will keep me civil. ;)

To review, this kitchen featured floor tile slapped on every surface They could think of. 

None of the countertops were level.

They painted the cabinets this horrible color - we're convinced it was a can of "oops" paint they got real cheap. They didn't do a good job with the paint either and didn't even bother to paint all the sides of the doors.

The laminate flooring was coming apart in several locations and They never even bothered to put flooring under the refrigerator.

Here we have what we called the "pretend pantry" because the door is so narrow that adults, even skinny ones, had to reach in sideways to retrieve things.

Oh - the carpet! The carpet in the dining room. It was full of holes and was filthy when we moved in.

You see, They had to put carpet in the dining room because They added a rounded step. That covered half of the heat vent. And served no purpose. And now it's gone. Yay!

Eek! See the original color of the nasty carpet? We really did try to clean it and this was the best we could get. Gag!

The fun began at 8am with Dad, Nick, Becky, Josh, Tiernan and Mia helping us out. Later our friends Nick and Brandie came by to help as well.

See the pure joy on Dave's face? I might also point out that you can see on the back of this tile that They only used a little glue to adhere the tiles. Which might explain why they were falling off.

More sheer joy...

If you look closely you can see the masterful craftsmanship that went into this tile work. 

The kids were all hard workers - in fact, I think if they could destroy things every time they had chores they'd be much happier about doing chores.

We were all excited to take a swing at the pretend pantry:

That was just way too fun to miss out on. Dave and Becky had to work pretty hard to get the ceiling of the pantry down. I think the builders used every spare nail they had in their toolbox on that ceiling. 

The kids got to use a box cutter and then, with Papa's help, the sawzall to destroy the couch. No shortage of smiles there! (The couch has given many years of service and it's time to say goodbye and what better time than where there's a big dumpster on the driveway?)

As we were removing the sink from the bathroom we learned that They painted over the wallpaper instead of removing it. We had no idea so we painted the walls when we moved in too. For some reason this really ticked me off. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised - this is called the House of Wonders after all but it just really annoyed me that They did that. And it's one more thing we have to fix. We were planning on touching up paint but now we have to remove wallpaper and paint the whole room.

We also were reminded why women live longer than men:

All day long Tiernan kept asking "is there anything else we can destroy?" Destroy was the word of the day and they had a blast! And I'm happy to report that almost every piece of tile has been removed from this house. Just one little area is left that will be a project for another day.

Everyone worked so hard and we are so very appreciative of all the help! What a blessing to have such wonderful family and friends!