Kitchen demo & repairs just about done

Hooray for the holiday weekend: 3 full days of demolition fun!

But first, some pictures of a mama raccoon moving her three or four babies to a new home. She got them up the back wall, onto the roof, and down the security gate on the front. It took a whole day.

Then, off they went into the neighbor's bushes.

Back to the kitchen. We started with this bank of cabinets on the north side of the room. It was the easier of the two to deal with -- no sink, no pipes, and I knew the counter was just resting on top:

Foreman Pickles inspects the job site.

They all unscrewed easily from the wall &, after some muscling to loosen them up from the toe kick, came out cleanly. Except for this one:

This is AJ wondering how we're going to get it out from under the new counter, without damaging the counter. She may also be praying for guidance.

We ended up having to completely destroy it, and take it out in pieces. Mission accomplished:

That pipe is an old gas line. We figure the stove must have been over on that side at some point. It's completely disconnected now, but stuck firmly in the wall, so we'll ask Mr. Bunkport his opinion on removing it.

Next: removing the wood paneling:

Good job, AJ the Builder!

As usual, Pickles kept watch outside, to make sure no intruders got near the garden bed:

All of that went pretty easily. As expected, the counters on the other side of the room were a lot tougher. We had to take all the cabinets out in pieces to leave the gas lines for the stove and the sink in place. We're holding on disconnecting either of those until the very last minute, to minimize the length of time we're without either.

Here is AJ expertly wielding her wrecking bar, after we cut and removed the countertop to the left of the sink:

Finally, we got it all out:

After we got all the debris out of the house, we set to disinfecting and cleaning up decades of mouse parties.

Dead critter count: 2.

As expected, the floors need substantial repair work from a professional.

It's hard to show in the photo, but there is a significant slope that needs to be leveled -- there is a drop of about 2 inches over 12 feet:

This is the spot on the far left of the above photo, where the original floor meets the new floor built in 2014, to give you an idea of the drop:

There is also beetle damage underneath this fine linoleum:

And plenty of big holes.

Here is a quarter-sized mouse hole on the north side of the room, worn smooth from decades of happy traffic:

And, on the south side (the sink side), here is a mess:

After cleanup, we started patching and repairing the walls. Overall, the walls are in much better condition than we expected.

I thought the space next to the stove would need substantial patching. It's actually covered with some sort of linoleum-style material printed in a tile pattern:

I can't see any reason to try to get it off and release whatever nastiness might be lurking under there. It will be mostly hidden, so we're just going to paint over it and move on.

 We only needed to cut about half a dozen small drywall patches. Here is AJ measuring, marking, and cutting out patches:

Most of what was needed were small rectangles. There was a tricky one needed behind the stove, though -- it was a large, irregular rectangle shape, with a cutout for an electrical outlet. Here is AJ's fine work:

It fit perfectly! Here is the finished patch, to show how great it worked out:

By lunch time on Monday, we had all the debris out and tucked in the garage:

Yes, many of the cabinets are actually made out of wood paneling.

I'm hoping to reuse about seven feet worth of the cabinets that came out cleanly, plus the long counter, to make another bank of cabinets for the workshop area of the garage.

This is now all that remains of the former kitchen:

After that, we got through some odds and ends tasks, such as making a tool to help get the tile level. Here is AJ trimming up a piece of plywood cut out from the back of one of the cabinets:

Then, I stapled on an old ironing board cover I just replaced, and added a handle:

AJ braved cooking one last real dinner, for old times' sake:

For the last time, we turned on our version of a range hood, this fan blowing on the hardwired smoke detector:

And after much walking to & from the living room, much asking where various things have been put, and somehow maneuvering on the four square feet of counter space left next to the sink, she produced these delicious fish and grilled pepper tacos:

Obviously a glutton for punishment, she then turned around the next morning and made waffles topped with her sister Meghann's famous homemade pepper jelly:

Next up: pull out the sink and have Mr. Bunkport come to fix the floors and install the new range hood.