Well, Its finally here. The Kitchen Renovation. This will obviously be the biggest and most expensive of all the renovations, and will even encompass other sub-renovations like the beam from last week.

Here's what we started with. A lovely dated brick facade, painted cabinets, original cast iron sink, and original wall oven and cooktop - complete with 6 speed pushbutton control. While the dishwasher ran, it did little more than spray dirt onto the dishes as opposed to cleaning them. The kitchen was absolutely ghastly, and we knew it would be one of the first things to go. (08/29/2012)

We pulled the wall oven out and found this gem. Fifty amps of automatic house fire starter. A startling reminder that aluminum and copper do not play nicely together. We are extremely fortunate not to have burned down the house any time we cooked dinner. (11/29/2012)

After installing the beam and removing the load bearing wall, we continued on with demo in the kitchen. We pulled down the wall cabinets, and the soffit above. (11/29/2012)

We removed as much of the existing aluminum wiring as we could from all the runs to the lights. We picked up the feed from the same place, but ran new copper romex, and used purple wirenuts on the al to cu connections. We also ran as reused romex through holes in the studs and top plate since they used to run through the soffit above the cabinets. (11/29/2012)

We fed four dimmer switches on the new post, and ran romex to the new light locations and attached temporary pigtails. (11/29/2012)

We had to shut the water main off to pull the main counter away from the wall since all the shutoff valves were siezed. (12/01/2012)

We sweat in new 1/4 turn ball valves for the sink and dishwasher connections. (12/01/2012)

There was a heat pipe running through the soffit leading to the office above. We cut holes in the joists to run it through the floor. I am under the impression that you can cut up to 1/3 the joists width out of the middle, as long as you have 2" (12/01/2012)

Another buried treasure. This was a live splice to the exhaust vent stuffed in the wall. No electrical box, just wire nuts and cloth tape buried behind sheetrock. Whoeve last worked on this house was a real clown. (12/01/2012)

We stuffed in all new R15 insulatin in the walls. (12/01/2012)

Lauren is spreadying some very watery thinset to bind the tile underlayment. The previous owner used thinset on the linolium, so we decided to leave it. (12/02/2012)

Here is the underlayment done for the whole kitchen. We went with Dural Durabase since it was about 2/3 the cost of Ditra, but poerforms just as well. (12/02/2012)

And the first few tiles go down. (12/02/2012)

Here we are about half way done. About 2/3 of the black tiles are inexplicably smaller and the other tiles. This is wreaking havoc on my spacing. I tried to get everying evened out as best I could, but its not going to be perfect by any stretch. (12/02/2012)

We decided to run the tile under the base cabinets as well as the island, that way we wont have any problems if we decide to move things around in the future. I finished running the tile into the pantry, but I stopped short of the laundry and back door. we just didnt have any free space to temporarily move the washer and dryer. I refrained from setting any tiles that will protrude into the laundry area, and I knocked down any thinset in the underlayment, that way the cured thinset doesnt cause height problems when I finish this area. (12/03/2012)

Not too bad for my first shot at it. I had to do it all by eye, since the different tile sizes kept us from using spacers. Its not perfectly level, and there are some spacing issues for sure, but I think itll suffice. (12/03/2012)

Here is it with the grout. We scraped out the excess thinset between tiles, and applied grout. Sponged it down after an hour or so. Cleaned it us as best we could and let it set overnight. In thge morning I dry buffed the haze off the tile. (12/04/2012)

Here's the first bit of sheetrock going back on the wall. (12/06/2012)

Had to split the sheetrock around the sink drain. I also have the dishwasher romex and range cable through temporary holes. (12/06/2012)

We temporarily replaced the old sink and cooktop to have a semi functional kitchen while the reno continues. (12/06/2012)

We finished up the electrical work and hung the rest of the sheetrock in the kitchen. I really made a pretty good mess of the place. (12/10/2012)

We ran romex and installed round light boxes in position for the three pendant lights over the island. (12/10/2012)

We removed the old light fixture boxes and cut and patched rectangular sheetrock sections to get to the joists. (12/10/2012)

Here you see two new 20 amp runs in the new blue two gang boxes on the far ends. The center 20A outlet was replaced with a GFCI, and now feeds a new outlet near the ceiling for the range hood. I also installed the NEMA 10-50 receptacle box at the floor for the range. (12/10/2012)

Some very rough tape and joint compound work. I'm horrible at spackling, and the sheetrock is terribly uneven. This is going to take a lot of mud, and a lot of sanding to get things faired out properly. (12/11/2012)

After the first skim coat with lightweight compound, things are looking much better. We have a few tape bubbles we need to cut out and go over, but the surface is much more even now. There's hope for this ceiling yet. I think we're going to have to sheetrock the kitchen face of the beam sooner rather than later, otherwise we wont be able to tape the corner before the tin ceiling wallpaper goes up in the kitchen. (12/13/2012)

A couple more skim coats got the ceiling faired out pretty well. Its not perfect, but Its about the best I can do without pulling down sheetrock again. The taped corner seams were a little rough, but we cleaned them up with a sanding sponge. Theyll be covered with wallpaper and crown moulding anyway, so I wont worry too much about them. (12/16/2012)

Continue on with Kitchen Renovation Part 2

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