Out with the Old and In with the New: Week 4

We are almost done with the demolition, and the new cabinets are in!  (Scroll to the end for cabinet photos.)

After lots of work and inconvenience, which in my kids' point of view seems like "destroying everything," we are starting to see signs of renewal.  Inside and out!

We did a stay-cation for Spring break: highlights included a museum or two, fast food, friend hangouts, trampoline time, Pride and Prejudice read aloud at bedtime, a few movies, and a lot of hands-on help.  And a temple trip to do sealings with Frank. Megan, Grandma and Grandpa Judd, and some Judd aunts and uncles.


When the week began, we still had a few areas of flooring to remove.  Amanda and Emily made short work of the vinyl tile in the entry.  These were just stickers, but they sure stuck to the job for 33 years.  There's a good lesson for you!

The linoleum in the pantry put up a fight, but all of my helpers pitched in.  

Instead of fighting over the ipad, they were fighting over whose turn it was to use the crowbar and the linoleum knife.  Grandpa Fillmore would be so pleased!  Well, not about the fighting part...

This is how our front room looked on Monday: living room catch-all, dining room empty and ready for vinyl hardwood-looking planks.  Plan A was to keep carpet in the left corner and in front of the fireplace.

Then we started to realized that with the new island, the foot traffic would go right across the carpet edge, eventually wearing it out.  So we decided to walk the plank and put the wood-look throughout the front room and hallway.

Which meant clearing out the living room.

So my sweet husband, despite his back's painful backstory, muscled all this furniture out to the patio.

 And yes, it rained later in the week.

Over the next few days, we rolled up the living room carpet to use downstairs, pried up tack strips, plied out staples, and vacuumed up a gallon of sand.  I'm trying not to think about all the sand that is still living under our other carpets.

 Meanwhile, on Monday and Tuesday the kitchen drywall areas were sanded and textured.  The E.T.- inspired plastic sheeting helped to contain the dust and texture spatters.  During this phase, the only way to walk from the basement to the bedrooms was to go out through the garage, then in through the living room patio doors.  I'm glad we had nice weather those days.
 

The drywall gurus also fixed a split in the sheet rock of our garage ceiling.  Love the stilts!


Then cabinets were installed on Wednesday and Thursday.  Here's the before photo:


Wednesday:


Thursday:  The gap on the left is for the dishwasher, and over to the right a little is the gap for the gas stove with microwave and vent on top.   Countertops are scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks.

The sink gets a tilt-out faux drawer.

This is the view toward the office area.  We'll have a formica counter/desk in this corner.

The office cabinet will hide the printer.

It's starting to come together again!  

Tune in next week to see paint and flooring!  

 Hmmm, what color should we paint the rough stone wall? Vote for your favorite!
 (top row, starting from left,) a. Intricate Ivory, b. Natural Tan,
  (bottom row) c. Milestone, or d. Mystery sample color
P.S. the other walls will be Milestone.
P.P.S.  Actually I went with none of the above...