We're Getting a New Kitchen!

I still can't believe it, but we started our kitchen demo last week! We were not planning this demo nor was it budgeted but it kind of fell in our lap as a must-do when we discovered a continuous dishwasher leak ruining our subfloor causing all kinds of mold! We don't know how long it was leaking, but we first discovered it when we had reoccurring mold growing up through the tile grout in front of the fridge...a good 8 feet away from the dishwasher. We had a plumber inspect it and he confirmed that it was the dishwasher that was leaking and that our entire subfloor was soaked, ruined and covered in mold. The joists were also mold-covered, but not compromised, thank goodness! We consulted a mold expert and also thankfully it was not toxic mold and it could be cleaned and treated.

We fought with insurance to get them to cover it, but they denied our claim...we learned that if you cannot pinpoint a leak to a one-time occurrence (i.e. my water pipe burst on Tuesday) then insurance will not cover. Super news. I mean, why do we even have insurance?? So, we set out to get a Home Equity line of credit through a friend's referral to Metro Bank (who I highly recommend!) and started getting contractor quotes. We decided to use Dustin Hoover at Project Green Construction and could not be more pleased so far! We felt his price was fair and the predicted timeline was reasonable. And he has spent SO much time with us and we have loved the subs we have worked with thus far. Hopefully, we will be able to say the same thing at the end of the project. It would be nice to find a good contractor that we like...we have other home projects we'd like to eventually tackle if this goes well.

Here are some before pictures:

The dishwasher is siting in the middle of the floor because the
floors were so badly damaged, it couldn't go back in!

A view of the cooktop and over-the-range microwave.

Back door and desk area that is a dumping ground for our junk.

Fridge and cabinets that back up to the den.

The door opening the the den.

Eat-in kitchen area.

Laundry room...I had obviously already started packing.

Russ' built-in had to come out... :(
And a view of the door to the bathroom...I didn't get any before shots of the bath.

Pantry system open shelves...minus all the food that had already been packed up!

View from the den into the door of the kitchen...

Before demo could begin, I had to pack up my entire kitchen, pantry, laundry room and the half bath, since all the spaces were involved in the project. It took a lot of time, a day off from work and the help of 2 friends on 2 different days (thanks Ashli and Jourdan), but I got it all done the Sunday night before demo was to begin. We were also given a ton of free boxes and packing materials from friends, so we didn't have to buy a thing.

The mountain of boxes and stuff ready to go into the storage unit.
And check out my new, fun, RED bar stools I got at the Broad Art Walk! LOVE!

We set up a make-shift kitchen in the dining room that has our fridge, microwave, toaster and toaster oven to get us through without having a kitchen. We have our 6' tailgate table lined with our pantry foods that we we will still be able to use without a working kitchen, a few basic kitchen utensils and tons of plastic storage bags and disposable paper products. The remainder of our pantry is in boxes in the living room (since that can't be stored outside) and the rest of kitchen along with our appliances, table and chairs, etc. is in the temporary storage unit that now sits in our driveway. We also have a huge dumpster in the driveway...fun times.

The dining room table is our new kitchen table for awhile...

Yes, the next project is taking down the awful wallpaper in the dining room.

The view of our driveway...I'm sure our neighbors love us!

Demo started almost 2 weeks ago on the 16th and it was pretty much finished in 3 days. They tore out all the cabinets, counters and floors - saving what wasn't damaged so could so we could donate to the Habitat Restore and trashing the rest. The water damage was much more extensive that we thought and pretty much soaked our entire kitchen floor. We had to remove an 8' x 4' section of subfloor because is was so wet and there is literally plastic separating our crawl space from the rest of the house. The water traveled up the wall and ruined the insulation and drywall, too. And the smell at first was just awful! There was vinyl under the stone tiles and that was acting as a vapor barrier, but once it came up, the awful moldy, musty, damp smell came with it. It was really bad for the first few days, but now that everything is almost dried out, it is much better.

Demo pics after Day 1 - goodbye cabinets, most of the floor, soffits, 

Plastic that is up in  our den to keep the dust out...I didn't fully realize that
opening up the kitchen to the den meant having the demo IN our den, too. 

Demo after Day 2 -damaged installation and drywall removed and airing out, flooring removed to the subfloor, wall to den opened up

All the dark wood shows the water damage...

Crazy, archaic plumbing that will be redone.

Drywall down on den wall.

Beam support up

The water soaked straight through the particle board that
the crazies before us laid down under the stone floors.

Demo Day 3: tile demo in laundry room, finish pony wall for breakfast bar

We will have lower cabinets in front of the pony wall and the
 granite will go over the cabinets into the den creating the breakfast bar.

Plastic and caution tape covering the gaping hole in our floor!!

We found 3" of concrete under the tile in the laundry room...super.

No more door to the bath!
Check out the lovely paper behind Russ' built-in.

Tyler said, "where did the potty go??!!"

We are taking this "opportunity" to make several changes to our kitchen to make it more functional, up-to-date and hopefully turn this into something we love in the end. Making these decisions has been no easy task, as this is the last major kitchen update I hope to EVER do! Ha!

• We are getting all new cabinets and are removing the soffits so the cabinets will go to the ceiling. I went back and forth on the style and color (A LOT!) but finally decided on off-white shaker style cabinet doors. We did not do custom or all-wood cabinets to keep costs down, but we did upgrade to full overlay, wood cabinet door fronts and upgrade all the exposed cabinet sides to wood. I am excited about my pot drawers and corner cabinet to make better use of that previously unusable space.
• We are installing a gray 24" x 12" tiles in a brick joint pattern on the floors in the kitchen/pantry/laundry room/half bath. The tile was Russ' pick from the beginning since he really wanted a gray floor and now we are both really excited about it.
• We are keeping the majority of our appliances, including the dreaded dishwasher that started it all which we were able to have repaired. We are getting a new stainless vent hood for over the cooktop and getting a new microwave that we are building into a permanent island that will also hold our garbage, recycling and more storage.
• For the backsplash, we love the white subway tile look that is so popular right now but also love glass tile, so we morphed the 2 together and choose a coordinating gray glass tile. It will also be laid in the same brick pattern and go all the way up to the ceiling around the vent hood.
• We are getting new granite countertops, going with black for the island and something lighter for the rest of the counters that coordinates with the off-white and gray tones we have going. 
• We are also moving our fridge down closer to the kitchen door so that we can open up the space to the den. We will also have a new breakfast bar with space for 2 bar stools.
• We are adding some new lighting...a couple pendants over the island and 1 over the sink. We are also adding 4 cans lights to the den, which we are super excited about.
• We are adding 2 pockets doors...1 to the laundry room and 1 to the half bath to save on space. Russ is going to rework the built-in mudroom shelves that had to be ripped out since we can now make them a little wider.
• We aren't doing much to the half bath except installing a new toliet and getting rid of the awful medicine cabinet and filling in the hole in the wall in exchange for a wall-hung mirror.

The biggest annoyances so far have been not having a sink...we have to wash sippy cups, bibs, etc. in the kids bathroom sink and I use a spray bottle with water to wet the kids' hair to fix it in the morning (And they HATE it! HA!). We are completely cut off from the kitchen, so we have no access to let Bonnie out to the backyard or to get to our storage area in the garage. We can't park in our driveway or use the garage either, so we are using the front door...which is super awesome loading and unloading kids, groceries in the rain! We also didn't have our alarm for a little while, since the only access was in the kitchen, but we now have a new keypad in the bedroom, which is something we needed anyway. And let's not forget the crap that is EVERYWHERE including all the dust that comes from a demo. The biggest issue is by far, though, is no laundry...I have done laundry at a neighbor's house (thanks Kristy) and taken some to Mom's when we went out of town, but we will be hitting up a laundromat in the future to hopefully knock out several loads at a time.

Our tentative, rough renovation started like this, but since we decided to add a 2nd pocket door to the laundry room, that has likely pushed everything by a full week. We did pass plumbing and electrical inspections last week so that is great news! I am really hoping we can be done before June...fingers crossed!!

April 16-18: demo, mold treatment COMPLETE!

April 21-25: electrical, plumbing, pocket door install (the one to the bath) IN PROGRESS

April 28 - May 2: plywood subfloor install, insulation, drywall, paneling, trim, paint

May 5-9: cabinet installation, cement board and tile floor install

May 12-16: install granite, tile backsplash

May 19-23: install appliances, touch-up paint, final inspections