The kitchen progress continues even on a ‘holiday weekend’. Ryan and his dad finished hanging the sheetrock in the diningroom on Saturday! I got the kitchen taped and some more spackling done on both Saturday and Sunday.
Dad surprised us and came over today to help continue the spackling – which makes our goal of finishing it this week much more manageable!
Progress this afternoon after dad’s helpHard to get a good view of the diningroom but ceiling and corners are taped
I’ll spend time each night after the girls are in bed spackling and our goal is at the latest to sand on Friday night (bonus if we can get to it thur night). Then we have to prime everything, then paint the ceiling. The painting will be on Saturday for sure. Sunday we’ll install cabinets!
That means we can get the counters stenciled. After that while we wait for counters to be made/installed I can get some electrical done, maybe painting – we have to pick a color still. The diningroom won’t get too much more once it’s primed and the ceiling is painted – so we can move the table back in there and free up space in the office which means we can move toys out of the livingroom into the office. That frees up space in the livingroom for … a xmas tree! Tis the season!
Well it was a very long week for Ryan – and a long weekend for me as I took Friday off to do electrical which of course took time on the weekend too as we did it in phases.
First we moved the ‘kitchen’ out to our hallway (luckily we have a very large hallway) – technically speaking this is quite a spacious galley kitchen – if I had a good sink it’d be nothing to complain about at all. Unfortunately the bathroom sink is TINY and the faucet small and old so it makes a huge mess. But we are managing and using lots of paper plates to reduce dishes quite a bit.
Temporary kitchen – even our huge fridge/freezer fits and I wired the stove out here so I have that too!
Once the kitchen was empty they took up the old floor and put down a new subfloor – it’s so much sturdier now and looks great!
New subfloor in the kitchen
While the guys built the new knee wall and the walls around the chimney we focused electrical work on the main kitchen wall as a priority (before sheetrock was delivered friday afternoon and would block this wall).
Main kitchen counter wallKnee wall – i didn’t get a picture of the new walls until after sheetrocking started
Friday we also got all the lighting in the kitchen installed and wired. Saturday Ryan got the ceiling in the kitchen sheetrocked himself – impressive. I got a bunch of the diningroom electrical started – I couldn’t finish until Sunday morning because I needed daylight (short days are killer!). But we got the recessed lights in the diningroom installed Saturday night and wired up. So Sunday morning I just had to connect the old to the new wiring in there and then Ryan was able to sheetrock the diningroom ceiling.
These pictures are from last night so this is the progress of a 1 week renovation – i’m really impressed!
Outside of the pantry closet the kitchen sheetrock is mostly done!That venting for the hood will be covered behind cabinetry eventually. It was also the best we could do for venting with as few bends as possible.Diningroom is almost done sheetrocking as well. The knee wall needs to be sheetrocked on the back side and the archways both need sheetrock
We’ll do some sheetrocking 2 evenings this week after the girls are in bed. Then we have the break for the holiday and next weekend hopefully we can get some major progress on taping and spackling. We’d like to get cabinets installed the weekend of Dec 2/3rd so we have to tape/spackle/sand/prime (and paint ceiling at very least) first. Then cabinets installed. Once cabinets are in and counters stenciled we can finish any other spackling/sanding/priming/painting in the diningroom and the front area of the kitchen/pantry areas while we wait for counters. We’re hoping for counters to be installed early the week before xmas giving us time that week to get final plumbing done and cabinet knobs on.
I ordered the lighting last night – 3 drop down pendants over the peninsula, 1 small drop down over the island and a chandelier for the diningroom. I also ordered our faucet so I think purchase wise we are done except for picking out knobs for the cabinets! It’s good to be prepared and we have all the appliances and cabinets on standby!
We’ve had a busy month getting prepped for our kitchen renovation and hopefully it goes smoothly. This week Ryan took the week off and he and his dad are go-go-going with all the prep work. First a recap of progress.
Dad came out and taped/spackled my office -the large room. In the mean time Ryan spackled the playroom. Last week we got the office sanded and Ryan and his dad primed it on Saturday so when I got home sunday I could clean it and set it up as my office, craft room, music room, temporary diningroom and kids craft area. It’s a large room luckily because it is packed to the max! The table isn’t even moved in yet but will be.
Already packed but the office is primed!
Also over the weekend they got the old flooring up in the hallway and diningroom and new plywood down in both of those rooms.
Hallway floor – when the hallway is empty it’s so large!Diningroom floor replaced
Yesterday was a big day – we did a little re-wiring in the basement and Ryan and Mark put in some new supports (2x10s) under where one of the kitchen posts would rest to firm it up. Then they built and installed the beam in the diningroom which will be our replacement for the current wall that is there – we’ll have a nice open wall hopefully by the end of today!
New beam
This morning the guys brought all the cabinets in and stored them safely in the playroom. They’ve been inspected and luckily all of them are in good shape! No delay on the kitchen reno due to waiting for replacements or missing cabinets!
Cabinets! The blue ones are the island ones, the Dove white are around the rest of the kitchen
So prep work is all done – the last thing to do is finish emptying the kitchen. We’re moving the kitchen out to the hallway for now (a long galley style) and i’m packing up any non-essentials. The hardest thing will be having no sink or dishwasher – we have the bathroom sink right there but it’s quite small. We’ll be able to use the stove and fridge/freezer just fine and even have cabinet/counter room as we’re moving that out to the hallway.
I think the plan is between today and tomorrow to demo the kitchen and the floor and get the new plywood down. Thursday they’ll be starting to build it back up – put in the vent for the range hood, run electrical in both kitchen and diningroom. On friday i’m taking the day off to finish any electrical and they’ll be building the knee wall and doing any sheet rock prep thursday and friday.
The hope (optimistic maybe) is to be sheetrocking this weekend! Once sheetrock is up there’s the process of taping/spackling/sanding/priming before we can install cabinets so the sooner we can start that the better.
The other delay will be after cabinets are in, waiting for counters. At this point we’re ahead of our ‘worst case’ schedule to get counters in before xmas so i”m hopeful we’re going to be able to get our kitchen finished and used (minus flooring which is going to be a later on project) before xmas! Crossing fingers.
