Tuesday Night

Not much tonight. Some flooring ripped up. Some new holes in walls. Trim removed and de-nailed. A toilet removed. But I thought I would update anyway. Why not? It is not like I have a blog to write about someone doing something awesome, like running a marathon in 2:48:31. Nope, nothing to do at all.

Some of the lovely* wall paper still lurking in places in out kitchen.

Gwyn helped out while her brothers watched The Flash. She fed us pretzels. (Our hand were dirty or busy.) She got daddy a band-aid when he started bleeding. It was a Frozen Elsa band-aid. She also helped sweep up, as well as open doors for us when we took stuff to the dump! And she talked the entire time, kind of like Colin.

She loved the "window" in the bathroom. She wanted a picture smiling...

then one with a silly face...

then one dancing.

Sweeping. Although at this point the boys were brushing teeth and I think she was avoiding bed.

Kevin was most mad about the toilet tonight. The previous owner (who flipped it in the cheapest way possible) just attached the toilet to the floor with screws. The toilet ring was busted on one side so there was no place for the bolt to go. So they took a deck screw and just attached it to the floor. We despise him more and more each year. The wood will have to be replaced there.

The hole in the bathroom wall will be our new pantry, and the hole in the background, from the laundry room into the dining room marks where the new door will be. The current walkway from the kitchen to the dining room will be closed off.

We also see water damage by the sliding doors. We knew that was there, as we found it when Kevin replaced the siding. (3 years ago) Basically the beams holding up the back of the house were completely rotted and had to be replaced immediately.  Kevin ripped up the linoleum there after I loaded the pictures up tonight, so that will be in the next post. Maybe. I just told you about it so why read about it again?

Off to bed for another exhaustive night of sleep! And I think it is at least once a day, one of us tells the other "I am so glad to be doing this with you." It is exhausting and fun and stressful, but most of all an adventure together. :)

*hideous

Monday Night

Our part is almost complete! We are only doing the demo. (Well, and some painting and little things. But those are smaller projects.) Kevin asked us how long this kitchen was going to take, as he didn't know that there is only one night or so left. (Yea!)

As for tonight, we finished getting up the tile and backer board. That stuff sucks. I have a hurt shoulder, and can't do much, but I can remove tile since the hurt arm only holds the chisel. But that tile goes flying into my face a hair. I think a piece sliced my arm and that is why I bled the other day. Then the backer board is difficult to remove because there are so many nails. THEN you have to remove all the nails. Just to get to the linoleum.

But the worst part is the dust. It is every where. We opened doors and windows to clear it out, but it. is. everywhere. Every surface in the kitchen, the coffee table in the family room (yes, even with the tarps), even in my teeth. Ugh. Butwe are finished!
 
I also had to talk to the kids about being careful and not to get too messy, as there was spaghetti sauce on the tarp into the kitchen.... only to have husband tell me later it was him.

Here are pictures from tonight. Oh, and we take back the comment about the linoleum. As much work as this is, I am not sure we still would have rather had the linoleum for 8 years. That stuff is ugly.

The kids even helped tonight. As we removed tile, they filled up buckets and then dumped them in the dumpster. We have a giant one in front of our house until Friday. Yesterday Kevin tried to play in it with his friend, which meant they were climbing on top of the highest piles. I had to stop that as there was BROKEN GLASS AND METAL IN THERE! But when it was emptier, Kevin and Gywn did love to stomp in it. That was fine.

This was tile last night! Here is the last lonely piece of tile. Kevin left it for me to remove while I put the kids to bed.

The kids had already been in be for a few minutes when Kevin starting ripping up the backer board. Colin had been saying how much he wanted to help, so I yelled up for them to come down. They look grumpy in this picture, but they volunteered to come down! They were told they could return to bed as soon as they wanted. After about 20 minutes of pulling up backer board and nails, they returned to bed.

Here is a small section of the nails from the backer board. This is after we swept up. Most of the time we just looked in the dust and debris, which made me feel like a niffler.

It is gone! Now tomorrow we just finish the linoleum, and the carpet will go next week! Man this stuff is ugly. And oddly stained.

Demo Weekend - Sunday Night

We are tired and sore. More so Kevin, obviously. But very very tired. And we have one more night to get stuff done. Tomorrow we plan on finishing the removal of the tile, which is pretty easy now. Some areas have the tile, the concrete backer board, and some areas even have the linoleum and the plywood layer up. (This plywood is what the linoleum is glued to.)

We still have a working sink and dishwasher, as well as the gas stove. But the stove will go soon.

This is what the linoleum looks like. Honestly, I would have rather had this linoleum for 8 years, more than the tile, so I would have had 2 fewer layers to rip up.

Colin and Gwyn returned around lunch time. Colin jumped right in to helping out! He took out most of the nails in the floor, ripped up the backer board, swept up, and hammered holes into walls. He was a great helper! We also had some friends come over to help - Kevin and Mary Beth, whose son Braeden is in Kevin's (son) 3rd grade class. Kevin (husband) said Kevin (friend) did a lot of work today. I don't know if I said thank you enough times to convey how much we needed their help!

Colin was given the first blow at the soffit. Unfortunately, it was the toughest-built soffit any of us had ever seen. It is still standing as I type this. Kevin really isn't sure how it will come down since it is built into the framing of the walls. But it will, or we have a lot of cabinets to reorder. (Don't worry, husband was holding Colin on the ladder.) And Colin still has his work gloves from when he was little! They fit now.

Strongest soffit ever.

Looking from the kitchen into the family room.

Into the kitchen and old laundry room.

From kitchen into the hallway. Just a little more tile to go!

From kitchen into laundry room and dining room. All the flooring is up in this area.

From laundry room into kitchen.

The fitting for the oven was also well-built. This took more time than anticipated.

From hallway between kitchen and dining room into dining room. Some of the carpet is up!

From entry into kitchen. Some of the wood flooring is gone!

Bathroom, minus most of the flooring.

I got to rip up the awful step from the entry/hall into the kitchen! Here are the four layers we are ripping up. It doesn't look bad from here. (But it is worse than it looks.)

Plumber and electrician come on Tuesday, so we may not touch the rest of the carpet for a week or so. Flooring starts in about two weeks. Right now, our kitchen table is in the living room. But for most of the day it was over the coffee table. Which was weird, and there were layers of tables and dishes.

Found during construction...

 ...underneath our dining room table.

Sometimes having kids is so much fun. And based on the superglue-like stickiness, I guess these Scooby-Doo stickers have been here a few years. :)

Demo Weekend - Saturday Night

As I blog this, Kevin and Kevin are getting a bit more tile up. Kevin didn't help much today. I didn't want him around the tile much, but he helps husband sometimes, when husband has the time to work with him.

I think we had a great start! We lost four work hours in the middle of the day with a soccer game, a final visit to the cabinet store to order the cabinets, and one more visit to the flooring store. (We order that in a few days!) Thankfully Gwyn and Colin were with DTG, so we were able to dedicate the rest of the day to work. (K3 had a soccer game and birthday party, so he stayed. He really enjoyed being an only child when he could chooe whatever he wanted on Netflix, but realized how lonely it is without siblings when it came to non-screen time.) Tomorrow, we might have a friend help out. The kitchen and bathroom need to be demolished by Tuesday. We have another week or so with the flooring in the other rooms. And we also have to take up all the trim on the floor. (Boo.)

Overall, this is what we accomplished!

About 30 minutes before clean up I stopped and talked to Kevin. He looked at me and said I was bleeding. No idea where this came from or when, but I got the first injury!

He took out big heavy things, I took out everything else. (So he got the sink.)

Into kitchen from the family room.

We got a good start on the tile! The yellow in the middle is the linoleum, that is under the tile. We get to pull up both, which is a total of 4 layers! (This helps explain the little step up into the kitchen.)

This step. All of my kids has to learn to walk with this in the house. And they all learned to step over it when they tripped.

Into the laundry room.

In the entry, looking through the dining room.

From dining room, looking into the (old) hallway and kitchen.

Laundry room, and what used to be the back of the pantry.

Kitchen minus some cabinets.

Through the pantry, into kitchen.

Kitchen floor, again.

Aaannnnnddddd.... this is what our family room looks like. We need to keep some things upstairs for breakfasts and school lunches. Our dishes are underneath the coffee table, the microwave and toaster are on the fireplace, and snacks are on an old book shelf. Next Saturday, someone is coming to clean the fireplace so a lot of this needs to be moved before then. Yea!

Mom FAIL - all week I had wanted the kids to have a chance to draw on the walls or floors that are being ripped out. I forgot all week. (We really did have a busy week.) So Kevin was the only one, but he didn't really care.

 I will post again tomorrow!

Demo Weekend - Friday Night

We are FINALLY remodeling. The remodeling we are doing is something we have been talking about since we moved into the house 8 years ago. We put it off until the kids were older. And that time has come! This weekend is the demo. I hope to blog enough to keep you all updated. As for what we are planning, it is actually more than the kitchen. We are replacing the floors on the entire first floor, except for the family room. The bathroom and laundry rooms are being remodeled, but most work is in the kitchen. It is so strange for the work to actually begin, since it has been a distant project for so long.

Here is what everything looked like Friday night, before demo really started. There are things EVERYWHERE in the house. We started emptying the cabinets and closets earlier this week. That stuff is going in random places, or in the family room.

Before picture of the kitchen. If you can call this tiny room a kitchen.

Looking from the kitchen into the family room.

Behind the pantry is the most awkward entrance into the kitchen, and requires you to walk through the laundry room. Beyond that is the dining room.

From the hallway, looking into the kitchen.

The laundry room. That door goes into the garage.

The width of the laundry room. It is awkward for two people to be in there, and impossible for someone to do the laundry when another person is in the room.

From the entry to the dining room. On the other side of the wall is the laundry room.

Same room, just different angle.

Laundry room coming in from the garage.

Front door/entry. The dining room is to the right, living room on the left.

Entry/front door from the kitchen. The bathroom is the open door on the right.

Bathroom.

From the kitchen, looking at the basement door. The light is coming from the bathroom.

The living room from the family room. Kevin was (kind of) standing in front of the fire place when he took this.

Same spot, turned to look into the bathroom and kitchen.

From living room into dining room.

Stairs and living room. (With some Halloween cobwebs still in place.)

From the front door. Dining room is on the left, living room on the right, and kitchen in the back. Handsome man up top.

I plan to update a few more times this weekend to show how much we get done!!!