Kitchen Remodel: Tearing Into It

Initially we thought that after developing a plan for remodeling the kitchen, we would start by gutting the entire thing. Perhaps we would have, if we'd waited until the weather was milder. Besides tearing out the inner walls and floor, gutting the kitchen means having to move stove, fridge, and cabinets out onto the back porch. Starting like, in February, and it would be too dang cold to do all my kitchening out there. It has no heat! Am I a wimp or what. ;) Rather than wait though, we decided to get started and just take it once section at a time.

While I was trying to figure out the window treatment for the bathroom, Dan started working in the crawlspace under the kitchen. He added additional support for the cookstove, as well as new bridging between the floor joists. The other day though, he came home from work ready to tear in to something. We decided to start with the corner by the back window. Not only do we need to do something about the water damage under that window, but we've also decided to move, as well as replace, the back door.

First though, I had to clear out the cabinets and shelves.

My herb and tincture cabinet.
Also, a better shot of "The Post"

I liked these cabinets for storing my herbs, tinctures, and teas. The shelf spacing was a good height for quart jars, and the selves were shallow enough to be able to find things without too much digging around. Unfortunately, they were right where we plan to put the new back door, so they had to go.

Lots of nails to pull, including some cut
nails, which are difficult to pull out.

Initially we'd hoped to reuse all the wood. Unfortunately it is quite dried out and split easily when the nails were pulled out.

This unit was one piece, built 1st & then nailed to the wall.
Sadly, the wood is too brittle to probably be salvaged.

Once we got the cabinet and shelves down, we made an interesting discovery; evidence that a wall had once been there. You can see where it was on the left side of the photo below, an unpainted clue to the home's original kitchen.

Back door wall without cabinet and shelves.
Can you imagine an entire ceiling painted that color?

The upper, baby poo green was under the upper shelf unit, and must have been the kitchen's original color. You can see that it was repainted after that wall was torn down and the shelves built. The entire house was once the green color on the bottom.

Below is more evidence of the preexisting wall.

The floor under the cabinet

The unfinished strip of floor in the photo shows the original floor. It shows where the wall originally stood. My best guess is that there was once a small room here, probably a pantry. That pantry had the linoleum floor you see above. (Same stuff we took out of the hallway when we did the dining room floor). At some point they tore the wall down and built the cabinet to make up for lost storage space. The ceramic tile floor was installed after the cabinet had been built. You can see that it was mortared down on top of the old floor, both hardwood and linoleum.

Our annoying post in the middle of the kitchen was probably one of the pantry's corners, left because the wall is load-bearing. Likely we'll get more clues when we take out the remaining floor tiles and see what's underneath. I'm guessing the original kitchen was an 11.5 by 11.5 foot square. Can't blame them for wanting more space. In fact, they were probably so happy to have a larger kitchen that they didn't mind that post in the near-middle of the room!

One big question was, what's behind the interior tongue & groove wall? Dan pulled off the trim from around the window so that we could take a peek. Above the window and down the side of the wall, we found the same insulation that had been blown into the attic. Well, at least there was some insulation in the walls.

Inside the wall below the window however...

... there is nothing. Nothing as in no insulation, no sheathing, no vapor barrier. In fact, with a flashlight Dan could see right through to the original wood siding, so badly rotted that he could see the vinyl siding on top of that. If it wasn't for that vinyl siding, we'd be feeling the wind blow through. That explained the water damage to the interior wall. It also explained why they put the vinyl siding up in the first place.

I suppose it's fortunate that this is only a 4 foot section of the outer wall, but still, it's one of those inevitable unexpecteds that comes with renovating an almost 90 year old house. It makes me wonder what we'll find under the rest of the vinyl siding, but that's a whole 'nother project.

So here's what it looks like now...

After tearing out the herb cabinet

Removing that cabinet gave us almost a foot more space. It isn't visually realized however, because the wall is a darker color. Still, it's a first step and the kitchen project has officially begun.

Kitchen Remodel: Tearing Into It © February 2011 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/