Last weekend we finally decided to bite the bullet and start the renovations on the kitchen. We have been putting it off as long as possible because we knew it would be the most time consuming and irritating room! But, my new fish tank stand and tank have motivated us (well, me, and I've motivated Matthew, haha) to finally start.
A couple of "before" shots in case you forgot what the weird little wall and the lovely wallpaper in the kitchen looked like.
Before removing the wall we wanted to be extra sure that the ceiling was well supported. Matthew added a couple of 2x6's to the attic that span the distance of the wall below.
Let the demolition begin!
While Matthew took down the wall, I started removing wall paper (you can see part of the remaining wall in this photo is free of that hideous stuff).
The moment of truth...yay, the ceiling didn't fall in!
The wall had a rather tenacious hold on the rest of the house, but it was no match for Matthew's collection of power tools. Here he is using the dremel to cut the nails out of the cement floor.
Viola! The wall is gone and the room looks so much more spacious! We now need to patch the corner and the piece of top of the wall that was left. I see lots of drywall mud in my future! We will be patching the floor with a piece of wood (and a rug) for now until we can lay new flooring in the entire room. Note that the wall paper is completely removed from the remaining wall. I still need to scrub the wall, patch it, and re-caulk the trim before it is ready to paint. After that, we can move the fish tank to this wall and I can remove the wall paper and paint the rest of the kitchen.
Looks very nice!! Glad to see there were no wires in the wall and that it wasn't load-bearing!
ReplyDeleteMatthew moved the outlet and switch that were on the wall...forgot about that!
DeleteWow, what a project! How lucky that you are both so handy. It looks more spacious and less plaid already!
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how taking out that short wall does make the room look bigger. What color will the kitchen be? Living with all/most of the furniture in the middle of the rm will feel odd - then the place will really grow when things are by the wall again. Its wonderful that you can be home most days to get this kind of stuff done. It takes forever but when your done its just a painted wall & no one can see all the work! But we know.
ReplyDeleteMom/Jane
We plan on putting up a chair rail all around the kitchen and painting the top half cream (like our napkins) and the bottom half green (like our placemats). We haven't moved any furniture yet except to store the fish tank stand in the guest room - there is plenty of room to work around the table and such. Hope it is all complete the next time you come to visit!
DeleteSo how is the project going? Can't wait to see the painted wall and the fish tank in place. You guys are impressive. I think you've inspired me to tackle a few smaller dyi projects in our house this summer. We haven't done much since the initial burst when we first got the house.
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