However, in our case, it was the same sort of thinking that got us into cutting holes in outside walls in December. Hey, wouldn't it be good if......? And if we're doing this already, then isn't this the best time to do that? It would only slow us down a bit and it would only cost a bit.
Bit is a word that has a very fluid meaning, and its fluidity increases during the stress of a renovation.
How much more expensive is that one compared to this one?
How long will it take to order that part?
How much more time until the power in the entire living room stops shorting out every time we plug in the toaster?
Are you tired?
Do you want to eat?
Does that cut hurt?
Is it bleeding?
A bit, a bit, a bit.
OK, back to the creep. If look back at the photo in the Kitchen Before post, you'll see this thing which kind of looks like a box, and runs along the top of the window, and top of the left hand cupboards. For lack of a better word, we called it a box. Above it on the wall was cedar panelling (these people loved cedar panelling. Whole chunks of this house are covered in cedar. It's like a sweat lodge in here.)
We planned right from the beginning to rip the cedar panelling off and indeed, that was one of the first things we did, even before the kitchen reno got started. That was where we made holes in the wall to figure out where the loads went.
Taking off the box was kind of something that really became more and more important to us as we went along. We wanted to open up the room more, to really pump up the vaulting of the ceiling. We also figured that if we got rid of that box, we could use taller cabinets on the left side of the kitchen. The right side of the kitchen was not negotiable. There's a huge frigging beam there on that wall and so our top line was defined by the structure of the building.
But along the window, and on the left, that box was decorative and empty. Simple enough to take it down, put some drywall there, and presto. Easy, peasy.
Except that this house was apparently built by someone who was taking the cold war and living in an earthquake zone seriously. It is solid. The box was gyproc - but very heavy and thick; thicker than what we can buy now because we wanted to buy something the same thickness to make a patch and the people in the hardware store just looked blankly at us. "Umm, it doesn't come in that thickness. "
That's the ugly door to the deck. If we hadn't been totally wrung out by the damned box, we might have been seduced into project creep there. The door needs to be changed but we're not sure into what. A full slider or just a plain white & glass door, like half a french door? It stayed for now.
The dust was incredible. We tried to corrall it a bit by hanging a tarp up and using fans to send the dust outside but it was only partly successful.
This is the kids' felt pen box.
And then Roo had to go back to work.
Before we started, we had created a kitchen reno schedule, one which was all nicely written out and 'project planned' with actions/people/time all filled in in appropriate slots. Unfortunately, we didn't meet our schedule.
The demo took about as long as we had planned.
Wiring took longer.
Plumbing took longer.
Framing & installing the new window took longer.
Ripping off the fake ceiling box - was completely unplanned & pushed us way off schedule.
Roo had to go back to work for two weeks, and then he'd be home again during the Christmas holidays. He worked during the week while I laid siege to drywall. Tape, mud, watch it dry, sand, dust, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
On the two weekends, Roo finished with the wiring and plumbing. We also started building the Ikea cabinets in the living room and garage.
If you look closely you'll see there still is a jog in the wall above the window. There is a large beam just above the window header and it sticks out a bit. We made the wall above the beam flush with it and just have a small jog in that wall. The exposed beam up by the ceiling will eventually be painted our white trim color. Looking good and we're happy with how it's turning out.
It's awfully close to Christmas though.
2 comments:
Wow. What a project. Did you often feel like running away? Because I know I would have. Either that or had some serious red wine at night....
What a gorgeous looking kitchen! Love to see more of that. Roo looks all grown up now, and you don't look a day older than way back when:)
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