Our local Menards had a sale recently, 11% off everything in the store, in the form of a store credit you can use on a future purchase. Knowing I was going to need quite a bit, I took advantage of the discount, picking up a large selection of single and double gang boxes, junction boxes and covers, a couple of "dura-core" doors (for the mudroom/basement doors that open into the kitchen), smoke detectors (hardwired), and as long as we're saving money, I picked up our 200 amp panel, some breakers, some electrical cable, and our wall tile.
Since I'm now at the electrical stage, I needed to learn, taa-daa, electrical. I found a great book on Amazon, and our amazing library had 3 copies in stock at our local brand. It's called Black and Decker: The Complete Guide to Wiring. Absolutely amazing book, it has been quite helpful in the whole process.
Armed with my newfound knowledge, I set about picking a simple wiring job. How about a nice, dedicated 20amp microwave circuit?
Wire feeding up from basement.
"roughed in" box
I don't have a picture of where it runs to in the basement, but it goes to where the breaker panel, is labeled, and has a few extra feet of wire coiled up.
I picked up a few more tools to make the electrical easier. That first circuit, I cut the wire sheath with a utility knife. It cut easy, but there's the possibility of nicking insulation on the wires, so I got a neat multi tool that safely cuts the sheath, and can also be used for stripping wire, bending loops on the ends for switches and receptacles, and also holds wire nuts to make twisting them easier.
Tonight, it's on to more wiring. After I mow our horrific lawn.
Finally, because she likes to be in the middle of everything, here's a bonus cat picture of Charlie on the scaffold board, which is currently a handy workbench, and her after wedging herself into the box my breaker panel came in.
First, a big thank you to my friend and neighbor (chronologically, in that order) Ross, for coming over and helping out, and giving Sarah the night off.
He tore the insulation out of the walls, while I removed the final pieces of the soffit frame that were nailed to the ceiling joists, and then we cleaned up even more from the previous nights' demolition.
Inspector Cat examines the work that was done
Without those last framing pieces, it finally looks like a kitchen without a soffit. I'm sure I'll say the same thing once it's drywalled.
!!!Possible Snag!!!
Dear diagonal board, why are you right where we want a window?
On the other side of that wall is a wonderful feature of our house, an 18x20 screened in porch. Our plan was to put a small window, 12-15" high, between the countertop and the upper cabinets, to let light into the kitchen, and to be able to see out onto the porch. Where we want the window is riiiight about where that outlet is in the middle of the picture. I need to do more research to determine if, and how, we can safely cut through that board to add the window. Initial research shows that it's called a "shear stud", or a "let-in", and is used to add strength to the wall, to keep the vertical studs from leaning to the left or right. Internet tells me modern houses use OSB or plywood sheathing on the exterior, but that doesn't help me. If we can't put the window in, it's not the end of the world. The window has always been an optional, but very much desired part of this renovation.
I'm pretty thankful that the non-stop heavy demolition work is finally
over. I'm just not cut out for that much manual labor. There is still
plenty of hard work to come, it'll just hopefully be spread out a bit.
Friday night, the lower "cabinets" were removed. Cabinets are in quotes because there really was just one free standing cabinet, the one between the dishwasher and refrigerator. The sink base, lazy susan, and end piece by the oven were just fronts and framing nailed to a ledger board.
It's really weird. I think taking the top cabinets down was one thing... They could go back up if I panicked. :) Once the base cabinets were removed, it was pretty much the point-of-no-return.
The valve on the supply line that goes to the dishwasher now has a slow drip. We've got a plastic coffee tub under there now, it takes a day or so to fill up before it needs to be emptied. It's a compression fitting, so when we're ready to put the new cabinets in, I'll need to put a new valve on there. Other than the obvious not-to-code running of electric cable through holes in the drywall, there were no surprises there.
Minor change on our temporary kitchen. It was so much of a hassle getting the refrigerator down the step into the entryway, that that's where it ended up. Not pretty, but I didn't feel like wrestling it back up a step into the living room, possibly damaging floors (or fridge), only to have to repeat the process when it needs to go back into the kitchen. Also, one of the wheels broke off somehow, shortly after it was pulled out from the wall.
I captured a time lapse of the base cabinet removal. Enjoy!
Monday Night
Monday night was drywall demo night.
Safety first!
Drywall is... much more durable than I thought. Broken into chunks, it also takes up a lot more space in the garage than I thought. I had a nice 6'x8' tarp laid out to hold all the debris. I was dreaming if I thought that would hold it.
As you can see by the time lapse video below, we started out slow, not quite knowing how to attack it. Early in the video, not much progress, and then all the sudden, large chunks of wall are missing. What finally seemed to work best was to either hammer the drwall just inside the stud, all up and down the cavity, and then tear out the large chunks. Or, if you can, and depending on how the drywall is installed, just start pulling.
Again, no major problems discovered. I did find out that our wall cavity insulation is "spun mineral fiber", or rock wool batts. They're extremely thin, maybe 2", if that. No wonder our plates were so cold in the winter! I'm still researching insulation, but am thinking of going with Roxul, a similar, but newer and better insulation. Mike Holmes likes it, so if it's good enough for his Canadian winters, it must be good enough for Ohio, eh?
Tuesday Night
Okay, so at this point, drywall is off the walls. The room is still the same shape, nothing super crazy has gone on. I could feasibly panic, and re-drywall the walls as-is, and all would be well. But it's Tuesday night. And Tuesday night is the night the soffit comes down. I bought a 2x12 board to use as a scaffold between the 2 ladders. It worked perfectly.
The soffit, as was revealed, is pretty standard. The main "frame" was made of horizontal 2x2s, attached to the attic joists by vertical 1x4s along the length, and vertical 2x4s on the corners. Removing was a matter of busting out all the drywall, and then hitting and prying on the wood to remove it.
Now for the bummer. Thankfully, the bummer had absolutely nothing to do with the project. As was customary for the last 2 evenings of the project, I had setup a time lapse. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of memory shortly before the soffit framing was removed. Gah! That was probably the one thing I really, really wanted a time lapse of. Oh well. For your enjoyment, I've at least posted the first half of the evenings' festivities.
Thank God, after removing the soffit, we have still found no evidence of mold, rot, moisture, bugs (besides spider webs), or anything else that would cause the project to increase in work time or cost. Just a really well built, 1960s Columbus, Ohio ranch house.
It's hard to tell how much bigger it looks. Sarah insists that it makes the room look huge, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to the fact that there's nothing else in the kitchen right now.
Next steps are to remove the in-wall insulation, remove the final framing members of the soffit, and figure out how to keep the attic insulation from raining down on us during the rewiring/plumbing portion of the renovation. Then begins the electrical...
Sorry, no bonus cat pictures, we're trying to keep her out of the mess as much as possible!
Our Temporary Kitchen is actually in several rooms. Food prep is on the buffet in the entryway, plates and glasses are in the laundry room, dining is in the living room, the fridge is going to go in my office (if it fits), and the coffee maker is on the old microwave stand, also in the living room. If you know us, you know we're pretty neat and tidy, so this arrangement is already driving us nuts.
If I can manage it, the old sink base/sink is going to be hooked up temporarily in the basement. We'll see tonight, because tonight is...
Base Cabinet Removal Friday Night
Yes, last night was the big move-out of all things not nailed down, screwed down, or too heavy for my wife and I to move.
I've had very little experience with plumbing, so I wanted to cut my teeth on something simple. The ice maker. I shut off valves to everything in the kitchen, and grabbed some wrenches. It was thankfully quite easy, the valve did its' job of shutting off the water, and nary a drip was to be found.
So, back to Base Cabinet Removal Friday Night... My goals for tonight:
Turn off breaker to dishwasher and garbage disposal.
Disconnect power from dishwasher and garbage disposal.
Double-check that water is turned off to the dishwasher and sink. :)
Disconnect plumbing from dishwasher, garbage disposal, and sink.
Move dishwasher into garage.
Move stove into garage.
Move refrigerator into office.
Remove countertop backsplash.
Remove countertop.
Remove base cabinets.
Build a little wooden frame around the hot and cold water pipes, so I don't kick/trip over them and bust a water line.
Tape/otherwise mount the plastic sheeting that will (hopefully) protect the rest of the house from insulation and drywall dust.
I'm pretty much going to print that off and make it my checklist. Big plans, I know. I was hoping to have some of the above list done last night, in hopes of having enough time to tear into the soffit tonight. Considering the mess that will make and the time it will take to contain the attic insulation, it looks like that will have to wait for another day.
With the permits obtained, it was time to start getting rid of the old kitchen.
Stop! Hammer (and prybar) time!
The first to come out was my wife's favorite, the baby poop green 1960s tile. We carefully removed it from the wall, only breaking 3 pieces. That gave us 118 complete, whole tiles. We also have lots of partial pieces from where they needed to be cut to fit around the window, and bull-nose pieces from the ends. We were careful taking them off, because we're hoping some crazy hipster fine citizen who wants to restore their house to 1960s vintage here in Columbus will want them.
Come on, awesome tiles, you know you want them!
The next step was to remove the range hood and upper cabinets.
Not code!
I'm certainly no electrician, but I'm thinking electrical cable up from the floor, running along the outside of the drywall, and then back into a hole in the drywall, is not code. That's the electric for the range hood, which was actually tied into the basement lighting circuit. That wiring has been removed, and will be replaced with new wire on a dedicated 20 amp circuit for the over-the-stove microwave/fan.
Looking like I know what I'm doing
I've already removed the first cabinet in this picture, as well as the range hood. You can see a) the massive hole they made to fish the electrical cable up to the range, and b) the incredible green the kitchen was once painted. I just accidentally typed "kitchen was once pained", which would also have worked, but changed it back to my original thought.
Our countertops never felt so spacious.
There's the picture from the end of day 1 of demolition. All the upper cabinets off the walls.
At this point, I can't go any further without taking appliances and base cabinets out, reducing us to a kitchen-less house. Sarah is going to make a bunch of stuff this week that both makes large quantities, and is freezable. I need to go into the attic and get all the blown-in insulation out from above the soffit, and make a cardboard "dam" to prevent the blown-in insulation from coming into the kitchen, once the drywall/framing for the soffit is torn out. Once I'm at that point, it'll be time to remove the appliances and base cabinets, put up the plastic sheeting in the doorways to keep the mess in... And demolish away.
Bonus picture! Only time Charlie will be allowed on the countertops
Bonus picture! Hopped right in and made herself at home
After almost 2 hours in the Building and Zoning Services office... I have my permits.
Since the Building and Zoning Services office is only open from 9am-4pm on weekdays, I took a 1/2 day off work on Friday to go down there. There were lots of people praying for me, and it helped, because when I got there about 1:15pm, the place was almost empty. Remember that. Within just a few minutes, I was able to meet with the plans examiner, who went over everything I had.
The "bad" news is that in the state of Ohio, any building permit issued
requires the smoke detector system be brought up to code. This means
smoke detectors in each living area, outside of each living area, and on
each level. No big deal. Except they need to be hardwired and
interconnected. Big deal. But not a huge deal, as I will have access in the attic to run the smoke detectors. Just a pain, and an additional expense. Safety First though, so that's why "bad" is in quotes.
For the window we're adding, I have to put in 2 2x6 studs vertically as a header.
The good news for the plumbing is that instead of a $200 permit, I'll
just need the $75 "minor limited scope of work" permit. Saved $125
there.
Examining the plans took around an hour, and included a visit by the main plumbing inspector, to sign off on my idea for routing the vent stack up through the top plate. They marked up my plans with additional notes and "code related" things I wasn't aware of. For one, you can't use regular rubber couplings to go between copper and PVC for vent stacks, they need to be shielded couplings. Also, where I hole-saw through the top plate, I'll need to use a "Boca plate" vertically, to reinforce the studs and protect the fittings.
Once I was done with the plans examiner, and my list of work was approved (the hard part), I took a number to wait for someone at the counter to get the actual permits themselves. Remember me saying how the prayer helped? The office was packed at this point, with several people waiting to see the plans examiner.
I had number 99. They were at 92. Not bad, took about 15 minutes to get through 96, 97, and 98. Then they called 101. I asked, "How about 99?" "99 it is." the clerk said. Lots of typing by the clerk at the counter, and $540 later, I had my permits. I had questions about the inspection process, so she sent me downstairs to the inspection department to talk to them.
More prayers answered, as I ask the receptionist to speak to the main inspector dude, and she says, "He's in a meeting upstairs right now...," looks up and continues, "Actually, he's out of the meeting and walking up right behind you."
I ask the inspector my questions about inspections. I didn't ask enough questions, because I'm still not entirely sure what work has to be done at what point. I'll need to research more. But as far as work and inspection order, what I have written down is this:
Do the electrical work (but don't cover it).
Do the plumbing work (but don't cover it).
Get a rough electrical inspection.
Get a rough plumbing inspection. (actually, this should be the only plumbing inspection, since it's considered "minor scope of work")
Install the new window.
Insulate.
Get a framing and insulation inspection.
Drywall, finish.
Get a final inspection.
So... Now the stress of getting the permits is gone!
Sadly, it was quickly replaced with the stress of actually doing the work the permits were issued for. It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't planning on living in the house during the whole process. It's going to be interesting to see how we'll live in a house with a non-functioning kitchen for (hopefully just!) a few weeks.
Between the last two nights, I finished building 16 of the 18 cabinets. I wish I had kept track of the total time it took to build them. I'm thinking 12-13 hours, but that's not totally accurate, as I was also cleaning viruses off a computer for a client.
If I could add sound to this without annoying people, it would be the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"
The last 2 cabinets that still need to be built, are the largest and heaviest; the corner base cabinets. One has a lazy Susan, the other has a pull-out organizer. It's questionable that they'll get through the basement doorway, so they will be built upstairs, when they're ready.
The mounting hardware... is mounting.
So now that the cabinet frames are built, I have a pool tableping-pong table workbench full of drawer fronts, doors, toe kicks, cover panels, plinths, feet, hinges, dampers, and whatever miscellaneous trim and finish pieces will be necessary.
Fronts and trim pieces on the table. Last 2 cabinets in the box in the lower left corner.
The bad news is, procrastinating time is over. I'm pretty much running out of small things that can be done without permits. Soon, I will have to bite the bullet and go get the permits to get this thing really rolling. That will please Sarah greatly.
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