Kitchen Remodel

So, this post is mainly for my friend Rene', who doesn't have Facebook (who doesn't have facebook?) and hasn't been able to see our progress on our kitchen remodel. It all started last Thursday, January 10th, when Matt and I started ripping out cabinets. Technically, it began the weekend prior when we started ripping up the flooring, or perhaps around Thanksgiving when we received our cabinetry and we had to put them all together, but that's neither here nor there. Officially, on Thursday, we began ripping out cabinets after Matt got home from work. For those who don't remember, here's what the kitchen looked like BEFORE:

So, we ripped it all out. Everything. All the cabinets. That soffit that keeps the cabinets from reaching all the way to the ceiling. All of it.

That took all of Friday and Saturday to complete. Then on Sunday we were still evening up the edges in preparation for insulation and drywall. Matt worked on wiring.

Monday, Matt worked on wiring and I worked on insulating. Did I mention that the coldest week of the year was happening right about this time, and we were FREEZING out there in that non insulated room that was open to the attic and the crawlspace. Anyways...

Tuesday and Wednesday we drywalled, and Thursday Matt finished up the plumbing while I finished up drywall and we began mudding. We were using the 90 minute mud, which made a huge difference! Pretty much by the time we finished with one bucket, it was dry enough to begin the next coat.

Friday: Mudding continued, with some sanding. Saturday was spent all day mudding more coats and sanding them down. Sunday we finally finished mudding! We did a final sand, primed and painted, and got the Ditra down on the floor, in preparation for tile.

Look at those smooth walls!



Anyways, Now we're up to Monday, the 21st of January. This is day 12 of the remodel, and we got started tiling. What a big job! Vince came over and helped, and in the morning we laid down about 33 tiles. Then in the afternoon, Matt and I laid down about 40 tiles.
Tuesday, we continued tiling. Matt and I were exhausted, and laid about 60 tiles down. Took all day. Wednesday, Vince came over and helped us tile a little more and also bring in the first of the big cabinets. His muscles sure helped!

This picture is at the end of Tuesday.
Wednesday afternoon, Matt and I installed some more tiles along the wall, and then got the pantry and oven/microwave cabinets installed. Then, we installed the oven and microwave. Success!

Thursday, Matt had to go back to work, so all morning and afternoon I cleaned up, got laundry caught up, cleaned thinset off tiles, and tried to relax a bit too. When Matt got home, we tried to install the over fridge cabinet, but realized the one we purchased and put together was too big, so I drove to IKEA to pick up a smaller cabinet, we put it together, and got it hung, and the fridge with water line installed. Its starting to look like a kitchen!!!

We even installed some doors. So you can see how beautiful this kitchen is going to be once we're done. Everyone tells me that we're making really fast progress, and sometimes it is hard to see that, but it is going to look nice when we're through. If you're keeping track (which I am) it's been 16 days since we started pulling the cabinets out. We still haven't decided on lighting, or a sink. But I'm hopeful we'll have a kitchen sometime in the next few weeks :)

~Pam