Frame it up!

Phil is in his civvies--no more dirty work for him! Our awesome contractor Paul steps in to begin framing up the kitchen and new bathroom.This is where the new left wall to the kitchen will be--it got widened by a few feet.And here is what will be the World's Smallest Bathroom©! Without any walls it still feels deceptively roomy...But once the insulation goes in, you start to think "hmm, how do I do in small spaces?"Feeling a little...claustrophobic? The glass block helps. I hope. Four can lights are up in the kitchen ceiling. We'll have a couple of pendant lights as well, eventually.
Here's that same shot, for perspective so you can see how far we've come. So much more open now!And it comes Mason Dixon approved.

Bagster badass

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Just buy one of these for all the demolition. Only $29.99! And a $100 fee to come pick it up. Way cheaper than getting a dumpster!Unless you end up needing four.

Demolition derby

At this point the entire kitchen and first floor bathroom have been removed. Pretty much entirely by this guy.All the old appliances are removed and the ceilings and walls are gone. So is all the tile.We might not be able to use the old pine floors underneath after all. They're pretty rotten through and there are a lot of replacement boards down there already.Taking up the floors was sort of Phil's Waterloo. He says there are an insane number of nails per square foot keeping the plywood over the original flooring. At least he got to saw this huge pipe out today. Nasty. It stunk like a cesspool, apparently. I wouldn't know, I was at Publix at the time.But I have actually done some work! Mostly just carrying debris to the dumpster and removing nails. But still. Go badgers! We're hardworking critters.Everything is covered in a fine coating of dust. And I'm washing dishes in the bathtub. But if you use you imagination, you can tell it is all going to be worth it in the end. And you'd have to be blind to miss the progress, which is sort of satisfying (although in this case progress = total destruction). Here's the kitchen this time last week...And here's the same space now...Getting there! Eventually.

And so it begins!

Goodbye old kitchen! The long-awaited renovation began last night... There are so many things I want to get rid of. I don't even know where to start. How about this wall that cuts off half the room? (and believe me, you don't want to cut off half the room when your house is only 13 feet wide) Or maybe this non-load bearing wall/beam/thing? I mean, because who doesn't want the magical effect of lower ceilings? Or maybe these pressboard cabinet thingys. This one used to have plexiglass covering the front, perhaps to evoke that classic "my favorite 7-Eleven in Compton" feel.Replacing this whole window and maybe the sink as well. And I can't wait to get rid of the counters. These ones are 100% plastic and feel like McDonalds tables. Thatcher came over with a ton of scary roughneck tools and proceeded to tear things apart. He had a great idea for this original door--we can make a dining room table out of it! When we are done with this project. Sigh. He and Phil tore out the bar... And took out the wall. They found crumpled up Creative Loafing newspapers stuffed in there. That will explain our crap insulation. Then they went to town on that low-hanging ceiling piece.We had always suspected that the heart pine floors might continue underneath the black and white tile (modeled here by the pups).Thatcher took out some of the tile and it's confirmed! Yay! Nice shiny hardwoods to come in this new kitchen. They'll need a lot of work but it will be worth it.Overall it was just an amazing night of work! Very inspiring for going forward on this big project. I pretty much just hauled debris but it was great to see these guys do so much in just a couple hours.