Plaster & Disaster

You guys, we made it! The kitchen wall is finally coming down! Originally (as in, until last night), we’d planned a pretty normal post schedule for this week — I was going to stop in with a kitchen update post on Wednesday, and then we were going to have two unrelated posts today and Friday.

But then I got to thinking, isn’t everyone just dying to know what’s going on in my house? Like, how can I expect you to make it through the week with just one kitchen update post when something so monumental is happening?!? So instead, I decided to make this whole week all about me! (If you think this is self-indulgent, just remember that this is the week leading up to the Boston Marathon, source of all my broken hopes and dreams, and let me enjoy my kitchen party.)

So the plan this week is that I will be posting every day. Yes, every day! They won’t be long posts, because on top of massive renovations I also have to, like, go to my job and stuff. But I’ll be stopping by to share a few photos and updates. If you don’t hear from me, you can assume that the house collapsed and Naomi will be taking over the blog.

For today’s update, here are some photos of the prep work we did this weekend. Originally my dad was planning to visit and we were going to do a bunch more work on the pantry wall, but we’ve delayed that visit until this coming weekend so all that work is still in store. But in the meantime, we kept busy. First, we had to clean out the sunroom entirely and also clear out big portions of the kitchen including a bunch of the cabinets we’re removing. The sunroom went from this:

To this:

Most of the furniture we just moved into other rooms temporarily, but the dark gray couch and coffee table (both IKEA) we actually sold on craigslist last month. We won’t have space for them when we turn this into a dining area, and they were in decent shape so we decided to make a few extra dollars for the renovation by selling them. We didn’t make a fortune, but between the two of them we made $200 which was worth it to find them new homes quickly.

In the kitchen, we went from this:

To major progress getting the counters and cabinets cleared:

And then we started taking down the cabinets on the wall that will be coming down. It just involved a few screws on each one. Here’s the first:

Of course as is par for the course in this house, we discovered that the cabinets were hiding all manner of construction sins. Fortunately this whole wall is coming down.

kitchen renovation prep -- Plaster & Disaster

I mean, what? Why is there this massive cut through the sheetrock?

Then we tackled cabinet #2:

And finally the corner cabinet. This was definitely a two person job: one to do all the hard work, and the other to take photos:

To get this one out we did need to rip off the trim around the window, because the cabinet was really wedged in there. But since it’s all coming down anyway, we weren’t too worried about damaging anything.

That left us with this:

So now we’re ready for our contractors to start the demo this morning! I can’t wait to see where things stand for tomorrow’s update — wish us luck!

There is a funny story (mostly debunked) that you can follow the march of technology all the way from the size of two horses butts as they pulled a roman war chariot, to the size of passenger carriages, to the width of railroad tracks, to the size of the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttles that they transported by train. It is funny because even if it isn’t literally true, it is mostly true – small details and decisions lead to another and sooner or later you have no choice but to paint your hallway white.

But let me back up.

With Sage hard at work on her kitchen makeover, and contemplating some high-stakes beam questions, I thought it would be a good time to talk about a similar decision made back during my renovation: keeping a beam and wall segment between my living room and dining room.

I did a post on the renovation a long while back, but because I did it all before we started the blog, I just gave an overview rather than sharing all the details. Essentially, the biggest change we made to the house was taking out some walls between the kitchen, dining room and living room (marked red in the below).

It was a clear call. The dining room was cramped and it made the kitchen very dark. The pattern on the built-ins was pretty overwhelming and definitely dated.

I’m all for built-in shelving, but it was excessive. I can only imagine how cluttered and oppressive that little room would feel if those shelves were filled with stuff.

But while deciding to take down the walls was easy, we had a lot of details to figure out. (Seriously, when I bought a fixer-upper, I had no idea how many decisions I was about to make.)

One issue was that the wall between the dining and living room was load bearing, so to remove it entirely would have required adding a lot of structural support, which was an expense we weren’t prepared to take on. Instead, we left a small wall segment (in blue in the above floor plan) and the built in that is in the right in the above photo (and in yellow in the floor plan). We also kept the beam that ran along the ceiling. Keeping the built-in but removing the beam would have been difficult.

This was a great plan. We still gained a lot of light and openness, but saved money and kept some separation between the kitchen and living room (which we like). However, it was also a little awkward.

The wall segment was strangely in between a large area that we wanted to have feel like one room. Painting it blue (to match the wall color in the front) would just chop up the space, and a strip of blue along the ceiling would look pretty weird. Painting it white to match our ceiling and trim was the only solution. That way, it would blend into the ceiling and, being light, would hopefully help keep the room feeling bright and open.

However, the beam and wall segment also connected directly to the wall in the hallway.

This was a bummer, because I had big dreams of an intensely colored hallway (red? magenta? navy?) filled with art. Hallways are not quite living spaces, so I thought it would be the perfect place to go a little crazy. Dreams dashed. With no natural stopping point, I had no choice but to paint the hallway white, as well.

(Yes, I DO still need to properly decorate it.)

To follow the chain a little farther, this is actually why I painted all my doors bright yellow. With so many doors in this long hallway, I thought this was the perfect trick to get the vibrant look I was going for.

The beam also connects directly to the built-in in the dining room. It was an obvious choice to paint that white, as well. However, less obvious was the finish. Usually I would go with satin or semi-gloss for a built-in piece which looks more like trim and functions more like furniture. However, there was no natural stopping point for the paint finish all the way from the hallway, and the hallway walls were in no shape to be semi-gloss, so I painted it eggshell like everything else (and the interior yellow to match the doors).

I love the way it looks in white – and I am crazy about the pattern now that it isn’t symmetrical with its partner – but I do think it would have a bit more presence if it were in the right finish.

And, to tie it all together, when I made over a wall cabinet to be a sideboard in the dining room, I painted it the same color as my doors to bring some of the yellow into this front space.

So, because we were too cheap to remove a ceiling beam, one thing led to another and we have a white hallway, an eggshell built-in, bright yellow doors, and a matching yellow sideboard. This is the view that sets the tone for the house the moment you walk through the door. I love it, but it’s funny how it all came about.