Kitchen Demolition Begins

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