This isn’t going to be one of those quick easy projects. The first floor kitchen is one of the few rooms that the previous owner(s) did not start renovating: the electric and plumbing are older than other areas, and the walls, floor, and ceiling were last updated sometime before I was born. So we’re sort of starting from scratch here.
With so many “to-dos” in one room, it is really hard to even organize my brain around what needs to be done (let alone in what order).* Here’s what I’ve got so far – just for the demolition/prep step.
As we actually accomplish these, each bullet will link to a blog post:**
- Rip out old (but not original) walls/ceiling/floor/etc (including the wall/cabinet between the kitchen and mud room).*** (blog entry posted 3/7/2020)
- Figure out how to get the damn bottom half of that cabinet out….
- Carefully relocate the (awesome) chest of drawers that makes up the bottom half of that divider to a different room – likely the one-day-will-be-living room.
- General plan for kitchen layout (appliances, islands, walls…) so that we can:
- Map and repair electrical as needed
- Prepare plumbing
- Set up venting spaces for HVAC
- Remove the original portions of the walls**** – carefully, so we can reuse the materials when it comes time to start putting the pieces back.
- Repair any areas that need repair -I’m lookin’ at you, floor! Also the walls – but Sergiu’s so good at walls, it’s barely like work 😉
- Replace the stupid, poorly-done, oddly designed window just south of the door with the half-moon shaped window we found in the garage just waiting for its new kitchen-home.
- This is more difficult than I like to think about. The whole wall sort of has to come out. I don’t know how or why, but at some point a roughly 6’x10′ section of wall (including outside) was replaced entirely, and not particularly well. It’s not structural, but it will be a bit more labor intensive (and time-crunchy, given the fact that part of the wall will be gone) than I would love. And it really has to be done before we can start putting the pieces back together at all.
- All the other stuff I haven’t even thought about – several pages worth, I’m sure. Please comment/text/email/carrier pigeon***** me any tips or reminders for things I have forgotten.
As you can see, this is going to be a long process, with a lot of posts. Hopefully not too long.
*This is sort of a theme for the entire house…
**That makes this post actually not just a report of our actions/progress, but an integral part of the process: public check list!
***While I’m fairly sure there was an original wall/cabinet here, and that part of what remains may be original (mostly the cabinet part), but I’m guessing the mish-mosh pieces of plywood and particle board don’t date back to the 19th century.
****Amazing old wood (real wood!) paneling that I’m fairly certain is original to the house – it’s very period-appropriate and doesn’t look terrible at all – so we are going to carefully pull it out, sand it down, repair/replace anything needed, and slap it back up.
*****Carrier pigeon is Westley’s choice.
The Wassaic Maison 