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On to the kitchen

853K views 88 replies 13 participants last post by  Jim F 
#1 ·
Finished my downstairs bathroom and while I do need to do the adjacent laundry room and hallway, that has been put on hold till the kitchen is done. This is not a total DIY. I am working with a contractor and doing some of the work myself. I have gotten most of the old self-stick tiles as well as the sheet vinyl that was on top of that. After that I will tear out the old cabinets.

Here are some before pics.
 

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#21 ·
Good tip Mike. I met the guy who has been taking the cabinets off the curb. It turns out he doesn't care what condition it's in. The guy is deaf so communication was a little difficult. He probably is using them as landfill.

The contractors got the closet and wall torn out, the new door installed but not trimmed out yet. And the door walled in. They also took off the old concrete and mesh from the inner wall and are going to replace that with regular drywall. All in all a pretty productive first day. I've been working on new wiring. I took pictures but too tired to post them.
 
#59 ·
So I relented and agreed to pay 300 of the remaining 519 that I owe on this job. The GC has been pretty accommodating. He explained that the final 10 percent check is essentially his profit on the job after all his contractors are paid and materials bought. I would have hoped he could make more than that on a job like this considering all that went into it. I suppose he could be snowing me on that. He really doesn't have that much left to do after the counter tops are installed. He just has to hook up the sink and dishwasher and finish trimming out the door where it meets the cabinet and counter on the left side. If I can't get him back once the conter tops come in, I'll just do it myself and pocket the remaining 219. All in all I don't think he had enough experience with kitchen remodels and underestimated his job and kind of sold himself short. I hope he learns from the experience.
 
#2 ·
There are some unique challenges to our current kitchen. There are a couple of beams running through this space that are about 3 1/2 inces lower that our already low 7 ft high ceiling. There is a corner that cannot accommodate conventional cabinets because the main vent/soil stack runs down it. The contractor I am working with wanted to have a friend of his build custom cabinets. But his estimate was around 11,000 for the cabinets, a laminate countertop and some type of acryllic sink that we were not crazy about. That was way too much money.

We are getting in Shenandoah cabinets from Lowes that are all plywood construction. These will have a solid surface countertop and sink. This was much cheaper, around 5200. I've read about the problems people have had with these cabinets and Lowes in general. It is just the limit of what we are willing to spend. The good news is that Lowes will NOT be installing these.:thumbup: We will just have to cross our fingers and hope everything works out with these.

For the work we are having him do, the contractor's estimate comes in at around 5100. Not too shabby and some of his estimates are maximums so if it costs less, he will discount it off the final payment. Already I saved 180 of his new door estimate when I bought the Therma Tru Smooth star door and sidelight we are putting in. The new door and sidelight are going where the window above the sink currently is. Where the current door is there will be a series of cabinets all 12 inch deep so as not to interfere with the basement door.
 

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#3 ·
This shallow closet and little bit of wall has never been very practical and will go to provide space and inprove flow. Where the closet and wall form a corner is a structural beam that we will be wrapping somehow. Plus, we will have to figure out what to do with the light switch.
 

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#9 ·
I think we must have had the same contractor put our kitchens in! Low ceiling, beam across the middle, etc.

We're starting to do our own renovation, mostly with paint but I look forward to seeing your progress. I'll try and get some pictures with ours as well.

Good luck!
 
#10 ·
I think we must have had the same contractor put our kitchens in! Low ceiling, beam across the middle, etc.

We're starting to do our own renovation, mostly with paint but I look forward to seeing your progress. I'll try and get some pictures with ours as well.

Good luck!
The low ceiling and beams to present a challenge. the original structure is post and beam construction. It was moved a block over to it's current foundation in 1939. It was originally an ice house of unknown age.

Here are a couple of pictures of what is in the outer wall. I pried up the trim in the doorway that was cut for the addition in the early '90's. And fortunately managed to get the trim back in place good as new. There is a large beam 10"x7" that sits on top of the cinder block foundation. The cinder block is two courses high in the outer wall to bring the first floor up to the 7 ft height.
 

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#11 ·
Here are some pictures with the rest of the floor taken up. Well, almost. I still have some under the stove and under some cabinets that were moved after the floor was put down.

Now we are thinking about restoring this olf oak floor but not sure if it is going to be worth it. I posted a related question about that in the flooring section. Also wondering what kind of wood floor finish is best for a kitchen floor which has spills and is mopped frequently. I see where people do have wood floors in their kitchen though.
 

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#12 ·
Quick update, no new pics to post today although more have been taken. Have taken out the two base cabinets opposite the stove, the tall 24" wide pantry cabinet, and all the wall cabinets.

The base cabinets sat on on the curb all weekend, finally someone stopped by in a pickup this morning and hauled those away saving me a trip to the transfer station. They would have been in better shape before the snow but maybe he's just using them for landfill. I can almost always count on someone picking up stuff I leave at the curb.

The cabinets are coming between 10A-2P tomorrow. the door is in at the lumber yard and hope to pick that up tomorrow before 10.

Had 6 inches of new snow to clear today so did not get much done on the kitchen. I did manage to make room for the new cabinets in the garage. I can use most of my old wall cabinets either in the garage or laundry room.

Still have to take out that run of base cabinets around the sinks. I think the best approach is to cut the countertop in between the individual cabinets but open to suggestions.

Was mapping out the electrical in the basement in plans to 1. replace old 14 ga 15 amp circuit with new 12 ga 20 amp for wall outlets. Also 14 ga for under cabintes lights not to mention I have to move a couple of wall switches.

In doing so I found what I believe to be a malfunctioning 50 AMP double breaker that served a double wall oven that no longer exists. The electrician wired circuits in according to wire sizes. The problem with this one is that it serves nothing and does not turn off. I'm thinking the quickest solution is to just have the electricin replace the 50 amp breaker with a working one rather than having an open space in my panel. I may add a big appliance or a subpanel to replace the electric ovens some day.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Picked up the door at the lumber yard. Just as I was taking it off my truck the delivery truck arrived with the new cabinets. Got to work tearing out the rest of the old cabinets. Now all that's left is the sink cabinet and the dishwasher.

The contractor is stopping by tomorrow afternoon to have a look and work out some last minute plans. He has a crew of four lined up for Thursday and Friday and will resume on Monday and expects to be done Tuesday. He also hopes to have it servicable for the weekend befor they quit on Friday.
 

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#16 · (Edited)
It took this combination of available tools to cut the old laminate countertop. The circular saw cut most of it. My son's dremel with a small cutting wheel worked best on the laminate in the place where the saw couldn't reach. I switched to the dremel when it became apparent that the rotozip bits couldn't stand up to the laminate. The rotozip made the deeper cuts beyond the laminate.
 

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#18 ·
I actually have a nice Dewalt. I just didn't want to cut that deep. The old cabinets have been disappearing off my curb so I've trying to save them for someone else's reuse. For all I really know they are using them for landfill but I've done my part to recycle. But yeah, a sawsall would have made shorter work of it.
 
#23 ·
OK, at the risk of sounding like an idiot I'm going to ask anyway. When you say someone is "using it for landfill" - what exactly does that mean? Does it mean they have a hole they need to fill or they are dropping it off in exchange for money somewhere?
Yes, generally a hole or some hillside lot where they are trying to increase their level lot size.
 
#24 ·
The day before the hired work started, my son and I pulled a 12 guage up to an existing recepticle where there had been an old and presumably 14 guage since it was served by a 15 amp breaker.

The plan there is to rewire two existing outlets to make them 20 amp. I have not decided whether or not I need a GFCI breaker there. One is on the wall near the floor and the other is to the right of my second run of cabinets and countertop. It will most likely be used to power small appliances on that counter so a GFCI is probably a good idea.

I was hoping that we could just pull the old wire through with the fish tape connected. Of course it was stapled requiring some hammering. There is 1-1 1/2 inches of a concrete substance (not plaster) on a steel mesh in my outer walls. At the contractor's suggestion, we decided to pull this all off the back wall of the kitchen and replace it with drywall. This made sense since we are already expanding a window opening for an new 48" door and sidelight and removing the existing door. It will also give us better acces to run new wiring. The other wall will be left as is.
 

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#25 ·
Day demolition pictures in no particular order. Once the outer siding was removed you can see this wall is made of. I think I have described it here previously. There are two courses of cinderblock, a 10X7 beam which they attached the original house structure to. This was needed to raise the height of the first floor.

Judging by the cross section,. we believe they then built an second wall inside of the original wall consisting of 3/4 inch tongue and groove with framing members sandwiched in between presumably to make the wall flush floor to ceiling inside.

As you can imagine this unique wall anatomy has added challenges to this renovation project. For instance, In order to bore a hole thtilgh the wall to run romex up from the basement, I need to drill at a slight angle outward from the floor down then measure from a landmark (I used the old copper sink drain) and bore up and an angle from the basement untill that hole met the first one in the middle. Then I had to put a little bend on my 12/2 romex to get it up through those two holes. This is not unlike what we do in medical imaging with vascular catheters. It is not a simple straight drill through a sill plate.
 

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#26 ·
Here are some inside demo pics. Closet and wall are gone. The concrete/stucco and mesh came off the back wall.

We discovered there were no headers in the door or window. Apparently, the house is balloon framed, it was probably one story once and made into two. According to the contractor, headers were not necessary because the load is carried all the way up to the roof. They held up that way for many years so it must be the case. The new door is not headed either and if it were, I would have not room for a standard door. I just hope they are right about the headers.

We also discovered that there was no support under that structural beam that runs right above my stove except for the concrete innwer walls. That was remedied with three stacked 2x6's that carry the load down to the large beam and CB foundation.

The new load bearing members do not leave room for my microwave to be vented straight out the back so will have to vent out the top, make a right trun in the cabinet above then out the wall. It would be easier to recirculate through the charcloal filter but I've heard that is not nearly as efficient at clearing smoke. It's either lose the cabinet space and have proper ventillation or recirculate and save cabinet space.

The new door was roughed in and the old openings for the door and 9 inch wall vent were closed in by the end of the first day.
 

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#28 ·
This is what we found when we opened up the corner soffit that gave us additional challenges in planning the cabinets.

I knew the soil pipe was in there. But, also found heat pipes for the upstairs registers on that side of the house. Thes are the copper ones. Two non-functioning iron pipes and an electrical cable.
 

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#29 · (Edited)
We left off day one with the contractor asking me if I wanted to add a new ceiling to the contract. I had already added the inner wall tear off so he told me to think about it overnight. I wasn't planning to replace the ceiling at this time but it was tempting to have it done. We do want to replace the current lights with can lights which would have been done with the ceiling replacement.

My wife and I discussed it and decided that it was more than we wanted to do at this time. I am going to be tearing down the ceiling to access the bathroom plumbing when I renovate that in the near future so it would have been a waste. There is nothing I can pay the contractor to do that I can't do myself as far as ceiling work and new lights is concerned. I have already replaced part of that ceiling anyway. I told them to just patch it up where they removed walls and trim as necessary which is included in the contract.

The cabinets are going up quicker that originally estimated but there was considerable rewiring that had to be done and old wires replaced with new ones. They helped me out quite a bit with the electrical so we just traded that additional labor for the cabinet labor we didn't need.

There was a double switch on the old wall. One controlled the kitchen and one controlled the dining room light. There was a wire coming out of that switch box that went up to two recepticles in my son's room. Those recepticles are now on their own circuit.

The staircase switch was moved to an adjacent wall. The switch by the back entry door will turn on the undercabinet lights. A single switch will control both the kitchen and dining room overhead lights. There will be lights available from either entrance to the kitchen. A three-way to control the ceiling lights from both sides would have been preferable but not feasable without tearing into the ceiling. It was a good compromise.

They got the first run of cabinets installed, electrical wires added and reworked, the new drywall up and then plumbing reworked for the new sink but did not get the sink. The plan is to use the old sink until the new one comesw with the countertops. They are running a little behind at this point so it may be 5 days after all. We are without a sink for the weekend but we don't really want to try and prepare food in that area yet.

In the meantime, we are eating in the living room with disposable dinnerware and drinking bottled water and having dinner at my inlaws.
 

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