Demo begins for the new kitchen…

Did you see that title!

Read it again!

That’s right, we’re ripping out the north and east sides of the house to make way for the KITCHEN!!!!

For those of you who don’t know, I love to cook and bake.
It borders on an obsession!

I’ve been patiently (not so much, really) waiting for this.

Most of our kitchen items are still in storage. We’ve been using the same few plates, glasses, sauce pan and fry pan since we moved in, 3 years ago.

You get the idea!

I cannot wait to find the food processor, the stainless steel pots and pans, our dishes…

Again, you get the idea!

Here is the space!

This is the original living room which we used as the master bedroom. Through the door way on the left is the stairs and beyond that is the new master bedroom. This face brick is all that remains of the huge two sided fireplace. (The chimney and front side already removed.) The door on the right leads to a small back porch (which is currently tore out to allow for some foundation work but will be re-built).

The windows will come out and the wall with the doorway gets opened up as well. The ceiling fan served us well for several years then I ripped off a blade flinging a sheet while I was remaking the bed. Steve insists he can fix it but this is one thing we will not be re-purposing!

This is the fourth wall in the room and will come down to make room for an ~8 foot island.

The second room we are tearing out is the small back room we were using as a TV room. Zach said I could not call it our “family room” as it didn’t hold more than 2 people.

 

 

Safety first!

 

Then we started gutting!

We found some cool stuff in the bin at the bottom of these shelves I removed. It must have fallen down behind the top shelf as there was no access to this area:
a 1 cent and a 22 cent stamp, a Duke Power bill from the 1950’s for $1.92, an Allstate auto insurance application, a 1944 schedule of Liberty Warehouse sales (this was a tobacco auction house and must have been where Mr. Sharpe, who grew tobacco on this land, sold it),  and a card from Project America (1964) to sign and mail to US Representative Jim Broyhill (R-NC) urging him to sign the Becker Amendment to allow Congress to vote for religious freedom/prayer in schools (the campaign received over 1 million signatures and was one of the largest mail campaigns in history: Read more).

The brick fireplace took a lot of work!

Steve started and took it down to this point (below) and then I finished.

Lord knows how old that soot was!

Finally I hit bottom, a concrete pad that extends out to the hearth in the foreground. Removal of that will be for another day!

On to the back room!

Ever so slowly we were opening the space! It was really hard work but so exciting!!!

And then came the ceiling… what a mess!

 

 

After a major clean up you can see all interior walls are down to studs.

The far wall will contain two wall ovens and a counter top between them. The plywood covers the opening where the old door was that leads to a back porch. The wall with the windows is where I am dreaming of a adding a master bedroom suite! The wall that includes the doorway in the foreground (which is load bearing) will come out along with the wall to the left.

The area where the ladder and fan is will be the prep area for the new kitchen. It will contain the sink, refrigerator and a 10 foot long counter top that will be bathed in light from an 8 foot stretch of windows!

The wall directly in front of the stairs will come out as well and this makes way for an ~8 foot island that will double as the dining table. (I opted for a walk-in pantry instead of a dedicated dining space.)

This was from one day’s demo!

Dirty work, check out that mask. We had to change them several times throughout the day. It did it’s job though, my asthma never flared!

Next post I’ll introduce you to the utility room and update you on the bathroom demo!

As always, do it simply but don’t forget the sass!

Kimberly