So Josh and I bought a house back in July and this is what the kitchen looked like......
A floating dishwasher, one entire wall not really being used, minimum cabinet space and a ceiling fan...not exactly a kitchen equipped for the 21st century.
So we decided to demo it and build a new kitchen....
We had about a month and a half overlap of owning our house and leasing our apartment, so we thought that would be enough time to demo things and get a good start on things.
We started with the floor thinking it would be a weekend project to get the tile up so we watched a few YouTube videos, bought supplies from Home Depot and got started. A few hours later, this is where we were.....
The floor could have probably withstood a nuclear attack. We ended up spending a week just getting the floor up by renting a jackhammer from Home Depot (you will see this trend throughout) and blasting it up piece by piece.
Josh has big plans for the kitchen....that do not include that ceiling fan.
The floor was the bain of our existence for a while there....see it still under the range? And that pile of dust to the left of Josh is how the floor left our house.
Then we found out that the drywall mud on our walls contained asbestos so our choices were to spend most of our kitchen budget getting it removed or to abandon our grand plans and just get some pretty cabinets and nice floor and deal with the far from modern kitchen.
You only live once right?
The asbestos removal crew worked for a day and a half and left our kitchen down to the studs just in time for moving day!
This was also around the time that our students came back to school leaving work time for the weekends and possibly a couple of hours during the week.
Josh knew that I really didn't want to survive without a kitchen sink if we didn't have to so he spent one Saturday morning building a makeshift sink cabinet for me! The set up was pretty classy.
This stage was still adventurous to us so we got creative with cooking steaks on the griddle outside on Josh's workbench and drinking wine out of disposable cups!!
Our good friend John saw that we were in way over our heads and offered to start helping out. He saw that the current frame was too small to support standard cabinets and there was no room for electrical wires to run around the kitchen. The first step to put our kitchen back together was building a new frame.
John came over most nights after working full days to help build the frame while Josh assisted after also working full days.
The results was sturdy walls built to hold up cabinets!
Rewiring the entire kitchen was next. John and Josh started the job and we hired an awesome electrician to help us out since electrical work can get complicated...
In the mean time, we bought a grill in order to eat less take out.
We also bought a brand new range and dishwasher!!! These parts of the renovation were my favorite.
Just look at that impressive wiring!!
Here's a great shot into our makeshift kitchen from September until a couple of weeks ago. Refrigerator, shelves of food and a microwave on bottom.
So with the random work times that Josh and others were able to work on the kitchen, it's now Thanksgiving break. Josh spent a few days of this break putting in insulation. It was great timing because it had already snowed a few times at this point and we knew that more was on the way!
For the first few weekends in December, Josh put up dry wall. Here's an amazing machine that lifts and holds the sheet of drywall on the ceiling so that it turns into a one person job. (Rented from...you guessed it, Home Depot!)
This is the stage that gets dusty so I tried my best to keep it contained....
Here is the proof that Josh literally built this kitchen- the ceiling, the walls, everything.
Yay we have a ceiling!!
At this point, I spent a few days at a conference in San Diego while Josh dealt with a few workers that we hired to help but ended up just getting us behind because their work wasn't that great so Josh ended up re-doing it. Have I mentioned that he is amazing?
Can't see the lines can you Russ?
It was then Christmas break and we spend time with family in Maine and Florida. When we returned, we still had a few days before school started so we put color on the walls!!
I helped with this step! I love how this gray turned out!!
The next step was flooring- we spent a few nights cleaning all of the drywall dust off of the sub floor. (Note to self- always cover the sub floor super well during the drywall stage!)
Josh spent time leveling the floor since our floor demo back in August made a few divots.
Now it's time to lay the hardwood floor down!!!
Huey approved the new floor.
Time to plug in the range!!!
Josh also put the temporary sink back in so that I could really cook AND do dishes!!
This milestone definitely called for champange!!
Cabinets were the next step. We ordered nice handmade cabinets that we picked up in a Uhaul one Saturday and spent the next few weeks painting, finishing and mounting the different sections.
During this time, it was Mardi Gras weekend and I was missing the Spanish Town parade so I baked a king cake from scratch!!
We were able to unpack boxes of dishes that had been packed up since August! It was amazing!!!
Josh used this time to install fancy under cabinet lighting that make our kitchen look very elegant and modern.
Things are slowly starting to fall into place now.
Cabinets look even better with doors attached to them!
Our countertops were installed in the middle of March which was a final piece to making the kitchen fully functioning.
The next day, Josh installed the faucet and hooked up the plumbing so that the kitchen was fully functioning!!
More champagne!!!
Josh then started working on putting the hood over the range and got to cut into metal and make really cool sparks as seen below:
Next came the trim which means that we covered the remaining studs. Our friend John who helped us in the beginning passed away in December so we wrote a note to him on the last stud so that it would always be here.
We are waiting on buying a new fridge so I decided to paint the old one in chalkboard paint to make fun more fun!!
Below are shots of the up-to-date kitchen. We still need to replace the windows and add window trim but we will get to it later!!
Coffee nook
I love this kitchen!!!
The amazing hood!!!
I like how the chalkboard paint came out on the fridge.
Josh put pegboard on the open part on one wall to hang things!!!
I love the view from this window into our backyard.
Here are a couple of side by side comparison shots to see the difference!!!
So that was the last 8 months of our lives. Now onto the next project right Josh?
