Kitchen Renovation Chronicles: Week Two

Mercer Island Kitchen By Studio Mcgee

We officially started demo last weekend and things on our kitchen renovation are moving fast. We went from barely there to almost completely gutted in a matter of hours and the feeling of excitement that I get when I walk into our ripped apart kitchen is something I can’t even describe!

Last week when I left you we were in limbo after the dreaded sink debacle but I finally have good news, the second sink arrived and it made it in one piece.

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With the sink in hand, it was finally time to get things moving along so we set up our green Bagster to dump all of our trash in. These bags are actually really cool, you pay $30.00 for the bag and it holds 3300lbs of debris. Once its full you contact the number for your area to arrange pickup this typically cost somewhere around $120.00 and they come out with a crane-like truck and haul it away!

Mercer Island Kitchen By Studio Mcgee

We started with the brick arch that was over our range which was labor intensive due to having to swing a hammer to chip away at the brick but Wayne and I (mostly Wayne) finished it quicker than I thought. The biggest time suck was having to wheel trash outside every five minutes to keep the trash can from getting too heavy to move.

Honestly, I was shocked with the amount of brick that we hauled outside and I am almost positive that we will be loading it into a truck by hand to haul it away because the bag is full and very heavy!!

Once everything was cleaned up from the brick we were able to get a good look at the amount of drywall work that would need to be done. Basically, they installed the arch before the drywall work was finished so there is a large square missing in the ceiling which isn’t great because we weren’t planning on doing any patchwork on the ceiling other than adding a vent for the range hood but there was no going back at that point and we wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.

After the brick, we began taking the upper cabinets down so we could remove all of the backsplash and the moment those cabinets were removed it was like our kitchen took on a new life! It is so big and open without the uppers and I love the way it feels when I walk into the space.

When we began planning this reno I had one thing that I desperately wanted and that is open shelving. Open shelving in the kitchen has been around for the longest and when stacked with white dishes I love the organic feel it gives the space but as soon as the words “open shelving” left my mouth Wayne began to stomp his feet and flat out refused…

When we initially discussed it a few months back, things ended up getting pretty heated. We can both be pretty vocal and loud when something is important to us so it escalated quickly. After a while, I finally gave up and decided to move on with other plans so imagine my shock when the cabinets were finally down and I whispered under my breath ” this wall sure would look good with open shelving” and he AGREED!!

Mercer Island Kitchen By Studio Mcgee

This kitchen by Studio Mcgee has perfect open shelving on each side of the range and this is exactly what I want! In the beginning, it seemed like things were not going to go my way but to my surprise, everything ended up working out and I seriously couldn’t be happier that my dream kitchen will now include one of the main elements I have always wanted and I am so grateful that Wayne is finally on board.

Kitchen Renovation: The Hard Parts

On Sunday, we started removing backsplash from the range wall and I almost wanted to cry at one point because it seemed like no matter what we did the tile wouldn’t come off without completely ripping off the drywall. We struggled through that entire side but we were both surprised once we made it to the sink side because things went so much better!

We are grateful that most of the drywall work is only on one side and I’m hoping we can make the patching look seamless since most of it will be covered in subway tile it really doesn’t matter much but the ceiling is my main concern.

Now that the arch has been removed we have to build base cabinet boxes to fill in the gap between the countertop and range on each side, we will be filling those with storage for spices and possibly pots and pans depending on the inserts we are able to find to fit the small space.

On Sunday we demo shirtless…… 🙂 Just kidding. This pic obviously wasn’t meant to make it this far but I couldn’t resist showing you our youngest pitching in to help.

Word Of Advice

If you are going to be doing this kind of demo work it is best to use some kind of plastic sheeting to tarp off the area you’ll be working in because things get very dusty and unfortunately we were already too far in to stop when we realized our mistake so our entire house is probably covered in dust but after all of this messy work I think a total deep clean will be in order anyway.

This week we finished up several of the details for the custom range hood, here is a mock up of what the hood will look like when it is done. Of all of the things, we will be adding I am borderline most excited about the range hood and outside ventilation (next to our countertops of course)!!!

This weekend we will be finishing the base cabinet boxes, starting the drywall and installing the new sink. Once all of that is finished we will be removing the current countertops (bye bye yucky tile) and prepping the space for new counters!!

Once the counters are done we will be finishing out the range hood and adding a subway tile backsplash to the walls which I am super excited about.

Next week I will be sanding the base cabinets and prepping them for paint as well as removing the rest of the sticky protective cabinet inserts that have pretty much refused to come off and once that is all done it will be time for cabinet doors and hardware.

Somewhere in between all of this I have to find time to decorate our front porch/yard for Halloween, our daughter is dying for some Halloween decor this year. Typically she likes to hand out candy vs trick or treating so this is something nice we can do for her. I also have to make a Halloween costume which was a complete shit show last time when she wanted to “help” and when I stepped a few feet away to wash my hands she picked up my very sharp sewing shears and nearly took off her finger! So send me all of the good vibes in hopes that this year goes much better and we don’t end up at the ER.

If you have any questions about our renovation demo be sure to leave them in the comments below and if there is something you’d like to see covered that could help you in your own home let me know! This blog is nothing without all of you and I want to be able to help you in the right areas so fill me in.