Demo Day

There is no turning back now. Today, Carl and Angie helped us demo the kitchen. Drawers, counters, ceiling, range, sink and microwave.... gone, gone GONE!

Moving Day

Thursday, June 11 was moving day. Everything in the kitchen went to the its temporary place in the basement. Over the last few days Don re-purposed our old TV cabinet into kitchen counters. Last week, Sami sorted through and packed up all of the books in the bookcase and cleaned up the canning cupboard so there would be room for kitchen stuff.  Don and Carl moved our garage refrigerator to Carl’s house and moved our kitchen refrigerator out into the garage.

With the fresh paint, a new TV and coffee tables the basement is looking cozy. That is where we will cook, eat, and hang out for the next several months while the main floor is remodeled. The cats are getting over having their food dishes moved.

First attempt at baking using the table-top oven. Perhaps a little brown, but the blueberry pie smells mighty good!

The floor is worn through, the dishwasher defunct, and the paint is scrubbed off. Its about time to remodel.

The temporary kitchen is almost finished, complete with mini-fridge, counter top oven, and a hot plate.

Working Hard

We have a long, long list of things to do before the remodel begins. First, was to finish the current big house project. We began last September to build a brick and paver walkway around the front of the house and a patio adjacent to the driveway. We worked at it all winter, and now it is done. Our porch is a mighty nice place to enjoy morning coffee, and there is no more stepping onto muddy grass from the driveway. Now on to doing the fifty other things that must happen before the first hammer is swung.

Backing Up To Move Forward

   We began our journal-blog five and a half years ago. The original goal was to update and improve our kitchen. Much has been accomplished since we began; a new upstairs bathroom, insulation, a new front porch, and an awesome front walkway. All this in spite of Don’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.

   But, the kitchen remains a scruffy mess! We have decided that the time has come to reach our goal. In those five and a half years some things have changed. We are no longer as able to design the details and carry out the entire project. So, it is no longer a complete D.I.Y. project. Our needs have changed a little too. Our first plan sacrificed space in the main floor bedroom to widen the kitchen. Now we are older and we think we may need to use that bedroom ourselves when stairs become difficult to climb. So we have gone back to the drawing board. To that end we have hired a new architect, because the first one moved to Alaska (the cad!). Together with the new person we have roughed out a new plan. Coming up with the full-blown, detailed plan has had a few surprises. Portland has adopted new tree protection rules which have impacted how things are done (ka-ching!) as well as new seismic rules that impact the permit process and construction (ka-ching!!). Our architect, together with a structural engineer, inform us that new structural supports must be built in the basement, reaching down to the foundation (ka-ching!!). A basement wall must be torn out, a hole cut in the cement floor, columns and posts built and the wall rebuilt. (ka-ching, KA-CHING!!).

  There has also been a lot of back and forth with the architect about how best to get the look and functionality we want. We are finding out that when you pay someone else to do something that you have always done yourself before, there are consequences, in terms of time, money, and frustration.

   So, we focus on what we can do to get things ready for the work to begin; cleaning out the kitchen and dining room, researching products, shopping for appliances, brainstorming solutions to problem areas. We will move cooking and eating activities to the basement while the work is in progress. That necessitated fixing up the basement. More about that next time

Sami is painting everything in the basement so it will be a clean place for our temporary kitchen. When she sanded one of the doors, paint fell off in sheets.

 

Some of the paint contained lead. Removing it wasn't easy. There were at least five layers. The paint from one side of the door weighed several pounds! More backing up to move forward.