So here we go:
First you can see the 1970's kitchen we started out with. The drawers are broken, and new slides don't help. The presswood has been wet and has swollen in places, and the counter tops sagged on the inside and outside corners.
Notice the large hood vent/light/fan in the pictures above. While in the process of demolishing the kithen, the vent fell out of the ceiling and landed on the stove. This thing weighs in at 80 pounds. The original builder installed it wih 4 toggle bolts through the sheet rock. That's all, the sheet rock. No frame, no studs, no rafters. The sheet rock. Now this thing has been hanging up there since the late 70's so I guess that really and truely that's not a bad track record. But had it fallen on someone, instead of the stove, it would have done some serious damage!
Now we get into the old kitchen demolition. Rhonda's Mom and Dad helped us out and their help was greatly appreciated!
In the last picture of the stove you can see the damage done to the stove. The top is severely dented, and the porcelain on the left side (closest to camera) is chipped and the metal damaged. We had left the stove in place under the hood vent speficially to prevent someone running into the hood. We had planned to climb into the attic and disconnect the vent early on a Saturday morning, before the heat of the day got up to it's normal July 97 or 98 degrees. So having the vent fall was a sort of a blessing in disguise.
Ok, now that all the demolition is done, we move on to the clean up and painting, floor covering, and cabinets. As we show the painting of the walls, you'll be able to see that holes were filled with foam, and or spackle, and the floors were stripped of the old yellow linoleum. Rhonda and I painted the walls and ceiling, and the floor was swept (so many times we lost count), mopped, and scrubbed, then holes from the old carpet strip were filled (sorry, no pictures of all that). But you'll be able to see that the finished product came out pretty good. Rhonda and I also installed the new floor covering. The hardest part of that job was getting ALL of the old stuff up and coming back to a bare concrete floor. That's the only way to make sure the glue sticks properly. We had very few bubbles, and you can see Rhonda rolling some of them out. We had to take turns. That concrete is hard on the knees!
The pretty young girls show in the next couple of pictures are the daughters of the cabinet installer, or the cabinet maker (I couldn't keep up with the players even with a score card). They were helping out to earn money over the summer.
Here Rhonda is looking at a feature that we hadn't planned on. The carpenter built a nick-knack shelf for her. This was a "secret" feature. He said he likes to do something like that to surprise the customer. Rhonda is very pleased with it.
The next part of the project is going to be to redo the ceiling. I am going to do a "stipple/knockdown" type finish. Basically I will get a 5 gallon bucket of drywall compound, thin it with the color paint that we want the ceiling to be, mix in a little play sand, then dip a 1 inch knap roller in the drywall compound. Roll the roller in one direction allowing the drywall compound to form peaks and valleys then come back behind the roller with a wide putty knife (10 to 12 inches) and knock the peak down (knockdown finish). Once it drys, it should be the color we want with some sparkle (the sand) shining through. I'll try it on a sheet of plywood first to see how it does. I estimate the cost of this finish to be in the $30-$35 range. Decorators are charging up to $200 per room. I just can't afford that! Stay tuned to see the finished product.
update July 12, 2002 by Frank.