The Kitchen Tear-Out

In January this year, I started researching and getting prices on re-modeling our kitchen. We looked at soooo many different ideas and found out just how limited we are in changing things too much. So after many months of discussing, looking at ideas, measuring, changing my mind, and looking some more, we finally got started on the kitchen in July.

The kitchen originally looks

like this: south wall....

...north wall. On the other side of the refrigerator is the fireplace and living room, which you can see what all we did there, as well as the rest of the bedrooms, in my previous post.

The plan we have finally decided upon for the kitchen is to replace all of the cabinets with taller, bigger cabinets. The end goal is to have more storage space, and just a little bit more counter space. The possibility of a walk-in-pantry is out of the question, and my idea for a sunken wall cabinet at the end of the kitchen is something we'll look at further down the road. We got an estimate for what it would cost to frame out the area for a built-in cabinet, but I haven't ventured to get the estimate for the cost of such a custom cabinet. We may find, too, that the bigger cabinets will suffice for our kitchen needs and not feel like we need to look into doing more. (I'm actually hoping that is the case, because it would not be cheap!)

In getting things measured and planning out how the new cabinets were going to work, we discovered that the wood flooring was put in AFTER the current kitchen cabinets and was just built around them. So, we were going to have to either cut out some wood flooring to make room for the larger base cabinets, or else fill in with flooring where the existing cabinets are so that everything stays on the same level. Since we already have some areas that need wood flooring patched in (where we took out the hall closet and the beam area), we had a local flooring company give us an estimate on patching everything in and making it all match. We were originally under the impression that we had white oak floors that someone had stained a dark orangeish-red. Hence, we thought it would look nice to strip the entire wood floor down to it's natural light gray, white oak color, and just have a clear finish put on. As it turns out, the flooring company that was recommended to us, and came out to measure for our estimate, put in the existing wood floor. It is not white oak, but a #2 grade red oak with a clear, oil-based polyurethane finish. We discussed the options of trying to lighten up the orange-red colors, but it was never going to be the light gray, white oak we thought we'd get. So we decided to go with the cheapest, most reasonable option of just patching in the holes, finishing them to match, and getting a final clear coat over the entire floor to brighten it up and fill in the cracks where the dry air has caused the flooring to separate. (Oh, we replaced the humidifier this spring, also. The house came with one, but when they came to service the air conditioner we found out how old it was and that it hasn't worked for a while. And the wood floor has visibly suffered from that.)

We started acting on all of our decisions in July, placed the order for the cabinets and granite (yes, we are getting granite) countertops, informed the flooring people of our decision, and waited to find out when they were all coming to install our "new" kitchen. We agreed to do the removal of all the existing cabinets, countertop and appliances, which also cut down on the labor costs of the installers. The cabinet people finally gave us a date for the 2nd week of August, so I in turn called the flooring people to find out how many days before the cabinets did they need to do the floors, and they are to start Thursday. That meant that we had to have everything out by Wednesday night.

Our friends, Shaun and Tiffany, were super nice to volunteer their time to help with the removal, but that also meant we had to work around 4 people's work schedules. Since no one was really sure how fast, simple, or easy the removal of everything would be, we didn't want to wait and do it in the evening after work Wednesday, so we did it Saturday.

 Friday, while I was at work, Jason started packing up everything in the kitchen. We are both super excited to not have to deal with these divider things, and half-depth shelves in the new cabinets. We are hoping that we will be able to get our pots, pans, dishes, and crockpots out of the cupboard without having to take everything out and turning the stuff sideways just to get it to fit through the cupboard door.

It will also be nice to have a utensil drawer that a utensil sorter will fit into, and we won't have this jumbled mess anymore.

All of our kitchen is being stored in tubs in the guest room for about 2-3 weeks. Gunther became extremely worried and upset when he saw us packing the kitchen. I think he was afraid we were moving; he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't leave our side, and he definitely freaked out every time we left the house.

Jason and Shaun did the majority of the work, sending Tiffany and I to get new valves and hoses to keep the water lines from leaking at the shut off, lunch, drinks, etc. I believe the refrigerator and garbage disposal were the two most frustrating appliances. Our monster fridge had to have ALL the doors removed in order to fit out the door. And the garbage disposal requires a special tool to install or remove.

Even after taking everything out and turning all the valves off, we still had a leak. We thought we might be without water for a while, because they had to turn the main water off. After playing around with the new shut-off valve and hose for a while, they figured out how to fix it. So thankfully we can still have water throughout the rest of the house.

All of our kitchen is now in the garage, and all of our food from the fridge is in two coolers with ice. We were planning to plug the fridge in and use it in the garage for these 2 weeks, but after finding out what a hassle it is to take the doors on and off, we may just leave it apart until we put it back in the kitchen. Apparently there is tubing and electrical that runs through the doors - one of the downsides to having a fancy, elephant-sized fridge. When they were trying to figure out how to get the fridge apart, I brought up the idea of selling this one and buying one more conducive to fitting in our kitchen and without so many bells and whistles. We considered it for the rest of the day, and looked at the cost of the fridge that we would replace it with, and came to the conclusion to just work with what we have.

We do hope to re-use the current cabinets in both the laundry room and garage, so the guys were extra careful to not beat them up when trying to get them out. The cabinet under the sink, however, ended up getting the sledgehammer. These cabinets were definitely more well-built and installed better than any of us thought they were. If their configurations had been a little different, and larger, they probably would not have been such a frustration to use in the kitchen. But, I think they will work well for the laundry room and garage.

Since we have no kitchen, our meal for the evening came courtesy of Jason's new smoker and the grill.

Jason found this Bradley smoker on an online garage sale site, brand new, only used once, and was less than half-price. He has talked about wanting a smoker since last year so he can make better jerky, summer sausage, etc. with his antelope and deer.

Jason and Shaun collaborated on reading "how-to's" and watching video tutorials to smoke short ribs and brisket. We had both of those meats in the freezer from the cow we bought together last year, and had been waiting for the best time to enjoy them. That time ended up being in the evening after removing all of the kitchen. I think they smoked them for 5-6 hours, and did all kinds of things such as a dry rub for a few days prior, basted with a barbeque sauce, and used apple juice for something in there. The smoker has an automatic puck feeder, so it's not supposed to be as time-consuming as the wood-chip burning kind. I don't really know much about the smoking thing, but I do know that the brisket and ribs were extremely good, and the croissant rolls they baked on the grill were better than any I've had out of the oven. And Jason and Shaun are excited to learn more and try smoking other meats and cheeses in the future. For the rest of our meals, we aren't quite sure what's going to happen. I plan to use up what we have in the coolers, probably grill a lot of burgers and brats, and then survive off of frozen foods that we can microwave at work for breakfast and lunch. I definitely won't be buying any groceries for a few weeks!

One more thing that we did this summer, that I know Jul is anxious to see, is have a firepit built in the backyard. There is a very long history behind the firepit building process, but it is not something I want to elaborate on here. I'll just say that it was the one thing that Jason wanted to do this summer and it was his project from start to finish. I put in my opinions, even though they were sometimes unsolicited, and we both agreed on the location. In the end, Jason has his firepit, it is very nice, and he really likes it. We may use it to cook some of our suppers on while we are without amenities this month.





We do have a collection of firewood to use, thanks to our big tree falling down last fall and taking out two other mostly dead small trees. We put the firepit right off of the existing patio into the giant sandbox.

This is the sandbox prior to the tree falling, and is where the firepit now sits. Thankfully, they did use the existing sand for the building of the firepit, but there is still probably half of a dump-truck of sand left. We have shoveled and hauled out over 2 pick-up loads, plus half of a little trailer, and we still have 3/4 of this sand left in our backyard. So, if anyone wants some free sand......we will be more that happy to supply that for you! We would just prefer you at least come help shovel it!!!