Day 1 - the walk-through and the work

It's day one and you know the first thing we need to arrive is a dumpster... and we all know why. Start of a great time of timing and multiple tradespeople all meeting out at the new site at 8am. 

Day 1 in the kitchen. Take a nice look because it's all going away. It was literally too dirty and greasy to clean properly and the countertop needing replacing bad (more on that below). We tried to save the microwave but as soon as you touched it, it was like squeezing an oily french fry. Had to go.

What is nice is the sink itself is in pretty good shape. With plans on the right, we are going to try and save this sink for our temporary kitchen we are installing from IKEA as their sinks are WAY too small for a family of soon to be six. We will have to do a major hack on the IKEA cabinets to make them work but it should be fine.

A couple of things here. It looks nice in a picture but that "backsplash" is peal and stick. It's awful. Gone. Second a few notes about countertops. Don't ever, ever, ever do this. Someone took refinisher and coated the countertop. This does a couple of things. See those ridges? You can't write on them. Also, stainless steel is standard for health code inspections for one CLEAR reason. It's SMOOTH. Smooth = clean. Ridges and cuts are where dirt and bacteria collect. When you "resurface" your countertops because you're too cheap to replace them, you are saying "I would love to have a petri dish in my kitchen beyond my sponge (which you should put in the dishwasher or microwave regularly).

Across from the non-existant countertop space is the fridge and a pantry with rollouts. Nice cabinets for their age but I need countertop space badly. Gone. That shutter door as well. Gone.



Oh the wallpaper. The idea is to keep it for now (sigh) and just replace the cabinets. Goal for this space is to take the "women's office" out of the kitchen where I guess she was supposed to run the house barefoot and pregnant? We are moving the fridge here to add more countertop and prep space around the cooking area. Much better triangle as well.

There will be... cords everywhere. We are going to make the house wireless so the cutting of the chords will begin! We will try and save the cabinets and donate them to Habit For Humanity.

Oh the paper. At least on this wall, we are taking it out. Most of this wall is going (not load bearing) and we are going to open up the view to the kids' new playroom which will be on the other side.

So on the other side of the wall is topped by my single greatest thing I love removing in a house - painted paneling. That piece in the corner is screwed to the wall so that will be fun. 

Eventually, we will be able to see into the kitchen once we relocate a ton of stuff. Looking at you HVAC return...

2nd Floor hall with carpet. We are keeping the carpet for now - let the painters mess it up and then we will remove it and pray the floors are in good shape. 

From the other side. There is a weird laundry shoot that runs to the basement  (gone) and two weird closets sucking up space (gone) that will be repurposed into a nice 2nd floor laundry. Why shoot it down when you can bring the machines up! 

 So this was a kid's closet. No kid needs a closet that big when I have to walk to the basement to do laundry - gone. The guys beat me upstairs and took off the doors in the game of "let's see what's behind that wall!" Let's hope I have 5 feet of space to make the laundry work otherwise plan C and D are coming into play.

Stickers... everywhere. Not as bad as wallpaper but it just made my top 5 list of things to never do in a house. Good thing we are repainting because half of them took off the paint. On a side note - wires everywhere and please pick one color or two per room. Six different colors on the wall and 3 finish colors... sigh. repaint.

So the bedroom next door to the closet room within a room has two closets that are normal size. One of these we are going to flip to the other side and give each bedroom one closet. Wire... to the left. Out of the frame is a junction box with 4 more coming out. It's like vines inside the house growing everywhere.

Because... purple? Had extra backsplash so why not the bathroom? That mirror is um illuminating.

Took off the valances before I thought to take a picture - they were that bad. Be glad I spared you. Those are not shadows - that is burn marks on the paint or dirt just ground into the paint. Carpet is um... scented.

Another angle of the wonderful wall and curtains.

Because why not get the cheapest fixture at homedepot for the master. It is so dark in here. 

A look out from the master. The shower on the right has a sliding glass door (for why?) and they reglazed the tile (see my comments on the countertop). We just can't blow it all out on this stage of the renovation but be assured your time will come tile... your time will come.

Lots of demo to take place before the end of the day. Big focus is on the walls, getting them ready to paint before we leave for the day and finding out how big of a mess we have to install the laundry room. Do we have enough room to use the existing pipes or are we going to have to run a new chase and vent? Ah more money. Lots of work to get done in 10 days...