Hi everyone. These past couple of weeks with the heavy snows and cold temperatures worked well with our schedules as we would have been inside anyway, working on our kitchen remodel and I was still in the entry way doing updates.

We don’t have a lot of new things to post but we’ve definitely been busy. Paul has had the brunt of the hard work; demolishing the kitchen walls and their four layers on each one (plaster, lathe, wire mesh, exterior wood siding – yes). It has been a painstakingly slow moving process for him.

What continues to be interesting to us is that because we are doing the work ourselves, we can see the details and sometimes, the history of the house. If we had hired contractors, we would NEVER have known many of these things which we feel are important to understanding it.

As you recall, the home when last occupied had been divided into 3 apartments and a main living quarters. The house was so large, I can understand it, but trying to unravel it all, was like de-tangling a set of Christmas lights.

For example, within the walls of the kitchen and its ceiling, we found outside siding, yet we didn’t find it between the one side of the walls of the “kitchen bath.” (We call it the “kitchen bath” because well, it’s located in the kitchen. :-/ and yes, we had already decided that wasn’t staying. lol ). As we walked the foot print of the area with outside siding and the area without in the newly exposed walls, we can now tell why the back hallway was why it was.

It, along with part of the kitchen was originally not part of the house but rather the back porch. The original kitchen foot print was much smaller and had a high window. The “kitchen bath” was built in an area which was originally outside of the home. They enclosed it and that’s why the flooring drops to a different level there and the siding existed.

It’s like a quick walk back in time as you stand there and realize what once was and how it was changed. Kitchens were so small years ago, almost an after thought and sometimes, an outside room altogether. In our minds eye, seeing it as it was and how it later came together, helps us as we continue on the restoration.

Here are a few pics of the kitchen demo along the way.

You can’t tell but below the chair rail are wall tiles. They were originally blue (I found old photos and scratched areas confirm it). It has been painted the yellow color you see. Everything in this house was painted, and then painted again. Add tiles to the 4 layers of wall that Paul was removing.

And yes, we are keeping that claw foot tub. It’s in WONDERFUL shape and so beautiful and large. It’s been protected during the reno and will be used elsewhere.

Finally, we broke through the “kitchen bath” wall into the back hallway (again you can see exterior siding was the ceiling in the back hallway). But we’re finally through, opening up the bathroom now to the hallway and we’re working slowly to remove the opposite wall between it and the kitchen, as work on the load bearing portion of it. But this was an accomplishment!

Well done, Paul! He did 99.9999% of the labor! He is almost single-handedly doing this house. I can’t say enough about how proud I am of his grit, determination and sheer will to tackle this!

Now for the entry way updates. We’ve bought many tools throughout this process but the one below (along with the wall paper remover) is by far my FAVORITE! It was worth its weight in gold!

The difference between climbing a ladder, (while carrying in 2 hands my multiple tools and trowel with joint compound – don’t spill it!), working on 2 square feet, climbing back down the ladder, moving it, back up the ladder (again with tools), oops…not quite the right position. Back down, move, back up, working…etc…and on 15 more times for each wall. Using this instead holds all of my tools, my joint compound and snacks, lol and makes a night and day difference! I can hang out and work away.

Now the side entry wall has been done and all of the paper removed (and a plaster repair job I learned how to do where it was bulging). I still need to skim it and will soon.

The area around the front doors – I think it makes the room look lighter with the dark painted paper removed. What do you think? And notice the little patch above the light switch on the right…scroll down…

This is a zoomed in view. It’s amazing but under this one area during all of the wall paper peeling and removal, this small area of original wall paper stayed in tact. It’s faint but there. Because of that, I had to let it stay… at least for now anyway. It appears to match the attic paper with a damask style pattern. 🙂

And here, you can finally see why I didn’t remove the wall paper below about 3 feet around the walls. We’re letting you in on a sneak peek preview of our idea for the entry way!

We stripped the paint from the baseboard (at least 4 layers, lol), stained it and then added this. We plan to create a sort of built in coat rack area here, as well.

Paul’s amazing carpentry skills and his detail coming out again! We both came up with the concept but he made it happen.

Let’s see how it stains!