Kitchen Reno - Part 1

This winter, like a lot of people in New England, we had some water damage from ice dams.  Our cape-style house doesn't have an attic so the heat from the house melts the snow on the roof which then refreezes on the cold gutters, creating lovely ice dams.  Every other winter the ice dams have been fine, melting in between storms.  This year, however, with storm after storm, the ice dams ended up melting into the house in a few locations.

It started in the living room with a small spot under the bay window.  This wasn't a huge deal and is actually something we haven't even addressed yet.  The kitchen is where we had the most damage.  There was a spot above the window which I believe had some damage years earlier, before we even bought the house, because a small section of the wall had bubbled out.  We figured if the water damage was contained to this area, we'd be ok.  But then one morning we woke up and water was dripping down from the cabinets and the counters were soaked.  There was also a wet spot on our ceiling.  We called in a company to melt the ice dams and bought a roof rake - a little too late, but I digress.

We were able to stop the leaking and no further damage was done.  When spring finally rolled around, we started to talk about how we'd fix the kitchen.  I have hated the design of our kitchen since the day we moved in.  Functionally, it was fine, but it was just so dated.  The blue and white tiled counter-tops were hard to clean and the floor was a pale cream which had dirt ground into it that wouldn't come out no matter how hard we scrubbed or how much we threw bleach cleaner down.  We tried to make the best of it and hide the imperfections with new appliances and decor, but the truth was, it was dated and ugly. 

As we thought about it more and more we figured now was the time to finally address a real kitchen update.  The problem was, we couldn't just do one thing i.e. replace the ugly floor without talking about the cabinets.  Then once we talked cabinets, it led to changing out the counter.  Counters led to the back-splash and before we knew it, we were talking about a full remodel.

We met with several contractors and kitchen companies and eventually settled on one.  They had the best price for what we were looking for and could start in just a few weeks.  Plans were drawn, materials were selected, and we were on their schedule.  Oh boy, this was really happening.  

A few days before the work was to start, we set to clearing out the kitchen.  It's amazing how much stuff one can amass in just a few years.  We boxed up everything we weren't going to need over the next few weeks and packed it away.  It actually only took a few hours.

Dan had wanted to do the demo himself, but we realized that 1. we didn't have the time and 2. once we got near the cabinets, we'd be dealing with the appliances and didn't want to do anything to damage them.  So we compromised and he was able to demo our island.  Man, I hated that island.  It was way too far away from the sink area, so it was barely usable.  The storage inside it was great, but the surface area ended up just being a place to plop a candle or some flowers.  It just wasn't functional so I was glad to see it go.  It wasn't that hard to take apart and Dan loved doing it.

 

Once we were done cleaning the kitchen and demoing what we could, our guest room looked like this:

And the fun was only beginning!  We set up our office to be our walk in pantry and the laundry room counter had our microwave and toaster oven.  Little did we know, this next month would be one of the longest of our lives!

Be well,