The Beige Beast

Our kitchen renovation is, compared to most, going to be quite mild.  We're not adding an addition, knocking down load-bearing walls, or anything that crazy.  But the big thing that we are doing, is removing the soffit from over the kitchen cabinets. 

The big question is, "What lies behind the Beige Beast?"

It's a ranch style home, so I know we're not going to deal with upstairs bathroom pipes running through the soffits, or HVAC ducts, since all of our ducting is in the basement.

As I'm still working on my x-ray vision, my next best option was to cut holes in the drywall and see what we're in for.

Okay, not so bad here.  Looks like the 2x4 framing for the soffit simply nails to the 2x4 framing of the walls.  But, uh oh, that looks like electrical.

 Camera flash + 50 years of spider webs = inconclusive pictures.

There's one reason the soffit (and therefore the kitchen itself) is so cold.  The cardboard (!!!) they used to hold up the insulation has fallen down into the soffit, letting cold air (or hot, in the summer) to circulate, and allowing the beige beast to breathe.

Awww, poopie.  There's the wires to the right, which come up the wall on one side of the soffit, and go back down the other wall.  Unfortunately, they're going to need to be moved up into the attic, because I'm going to need to drywall right up to that top 2x4 on the header.  That means re-running all of those wires, because I'm going to need to drill holes in the header to route them up into the attic, and then back down.  And to the left... There's what I was most afraid of.  The vent stack for the sink, jutting oh so gracefully out of the wall cavity, into the soffit, and into the attic.  That too will need to be cut, re-routed through the header and into the attic.  Thankfully, of the 3 types of plumbing: getting fresh water to the faucet, getting waste water to the sewer, and getting fresh air to allow the water to drain quickly, this is the latter, and most forgiving.

That's just one corner, and it's the worst.  But there is more electrical running through the rest of the soffit, as well.  The electrical panel, which is full, is in the basement directly below the kitchen.  There's 5 circuits that come up through the wall, and feed every light and outlet in the house.  We can't microwave and use the toaster at the same time, as it trips a breaker, so while we're doing the kitchen, we're going to get a larger panel, too.  That's a lot of electrical to re-run/re-route, but thankfully, as expensive as copper is right now, standard electrical wiring is only 19 cents a foot. 

And finally, no, that is not a dead rodent pulled from the soffit.  It is a kebab skewer that conveniently collected cobwebs, so that my hand didn't have to.