Lordy, am I tired… (Kitchen Renovation Part 2)

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2003) The big kitchen demolition was this weekend. We were ready to go. We had extra pairs of goggles, masks, gloves, and lots of tools of destruction. What a project! I was up at 6:30 Saturday morning (Gabe was up at 5:00am) chomping at the bit to get started. There was a big, orange dumpster in my driveway just waiting to be fed. I told everyone who had offered to help that we were starting at 9:00 but by 7:45 we could not wait any longer. I had no idea how loud a bang you can make throwing cabinet doors into an empty dumpster! I probably woke up a few people in the neighborhood.

As soon as help started to arrive each person was issued a mask and safety goggles and sent to a corner of the room to start tearing down walls. There were a few times throughout the day where I would be working so hard on my section of the room that I would "forget" what we were doing. Then I would turn around and receive quite a shock (see photo). I may have actually stopped breathing once or twice! By the end of the day the dumpster was filled to overflowing (and we thought it was going to be too big) and everyone was covered head to toe in plaster dust. What a great day! Special thanks to all our friends who were able to help out. With their assistance we completed the demolition 2 days ahead of schedule. We are truly blessed to have such people in our lives. 

I spent the next 2 days vacuuming insulation, plaster dust, nails, etc. from the kitchen (Yes, you have to clean the kitchen after you destroy it. Can you believe it??) and the basement. It did not occur to us that all the dust and such would sift down through the floorboards and into the basement. I hate vacuuming and here I am spending half my weekend vacuuming an empty kitchen and a dirty, old cellar!

Oh, and not to add any pressure but the patio enclosure guys called and will be coming weeks ahead of schedule to enclose the porch. So now we have to have the porch ceiling painted before next Tuesday. 

And have I ordered kitchen cabinets yet? Oh no! I'm not even positive where my appliances are going to go! I spent hours last night looking through catalogs to determine what the best configuration of cabinets would be. We have a follow-up appointment with the kitchen designer this coming Saturday. I hope what I have laid out will actually fit otherwise it's back to the drawing board!