So long, farewell

To our old kitchen!

I've been trying to get to this update for two weeks now and have had most of it written for a week. Well, I'm finally getting it out. We no longer have two kitchens which means we no longer have to climb over the old kitchen sink to get to the new master bedroom! How nice it is to use the door!

Three Saturdays ago my parents came up and my dad helped us tear out the old kitchen. It went much quicker than I expected. We probably had all the old cabinets out in less than an hour.

We decided to frame the door opening into the bedroom which was where the old sink used to be. There was some plumbing in the way (hot water, cold water, drain and vent) that we were working around. I was cutting a nail holding an old stud in and after I cut through the nail I just kept going into the water line (I couldn't see it from my position). So after a dash around the house to turn off the water main we decided it was a good time to take care of removing the old plumbing. It was going to need to be done sooner or later anyway.

We removed the old water lines as well as the drain and vent line and finished framing in the new doorway. It looks quite a bit different with the kitchen cabinets out and the doorway framed in!

Next we moved on to installing the pocket door frame for the master bathroom door. This was more difficult than it sounds since I framed the rough opening too small. It was 2 inches too short and 2 inches too narrow. When I framed the opening I didn't know there were different standards for pocket doors. After we fixed the rough opening we installed the pocket door frame pretty easily and called it a day.

We didn't get too much accomplished the following weekend since we were at a family retreat with our church. I have received a few bids on the stucco and once the I pass the inspection for the wire that will get started.

The next things are to get the stucco wire inspection, work on pouring a new footing under the house to support a sagging spot in our floor, add a dedicated gas line for the tankless water heater and relocate the water heater to the attic. This past weekend was very productive, but I will save that for another update.

I should also mention that we recently passed the 1 year mark on this project! It was May 3rd, 2007 when we received our building permit. Happy anniversary!