Kitchen Remodel - Day 5

The main task today was to reinforce the structure so that we could cut back the short wall dividing the kitchen area from the dining area because Kevin insisted that it HAD to be that way. I suspect he has visions of cooking something exotic and exiting over a fancy cooktop, funky background music playing, while his dinner guests, drink in hand, watch in awe and amazement. (He's going to kill me when he reads this, especially since right now, at 8:51 pm, he is still at the house working away). I was fine with leaving it the way it was and just painting over the brick. I am NOT the princess of this job.

So our contractor buddy sent two guys over (good thing we just happened to get there early enough as they didn't give us a time, only the day). I guess I shouldn't complain - at least they are actually showing up, we just never know when!
The guys went above and beyond and actually cut the wall for us. (I think they had to in order to get the beam in there anyway, but score one for us!) The beam was braced into the attic, and the structure under the house was also reinforced.

Kate used hot water, fabric softener, a paint roller, and a large putty knife to scrape wallpaper glue from the living room wall. Now that's a crappy job. Sydney entertained herself by getting into everything, and squeezing half a tube of Polysporin onto her hand. Could have been worse I guess and in her defence, she does actually have a boo boo on that hand.

Kevin was feeling overwhelmed today. Lots of tasks to do. Lots of scheduling and waiting and trying to time everything just right. We met with a plumber today. Nice chap from England. He will help with a few tasks here and there.
We also met with another window replacement company and again, it would cost about $10,000 to do the whole house. Guess we will have to live with those shotty windows for awhile!

Kevin picked up the dishwasher and is probably ripping out more drywall right now. I think he figures we should insulate the whole kitchen while we have the chance even though it means more demo, more mess and a bit more materials cost.

Tomorrow we will finally go to Ikea to buy the cabinetry. This task, even though we have it fairly well mapped out, is likely to take several hours as well as great concentration. We had to rearrange many schedules and postpone deliveries just so we would be able to go to Ikea on either a Monday or a Wednesday. Why you ask? Because those are the only two days we have full day care and there is no way we can concentrate if the kids come to the store with us. What about that great play place you might ask? Well you only get 45 lousy minutes which isn't even enough time to get through the store, then you have to add some lead time to weave your way through that frigging maze like a rat to get to them so you end up with 30 minutes!

I think some appliances, tiles and flooring arrive on Thursday and Friday.

Oh, and did I mention that we all have nasty head colds, are up all night coughing, and can barely talk? Fun fun fun.

Here is a panoramic-ish before photo of the kitchen for those of you too lazy or busy to visit our koday gallery site. We found out from a neighbour that those cabinets were the orginal 1955 ones with some refacing in the 60's - no wonder they were so yucky inside.