The Great Kitchen Remodel of 2011: Tiling and floor part two

After the cabinets were installed, Darren did some work on getting more tile laid. He made fantastic progress! This first picture is his progress in the morning.

This next picture is his afternoon progress.
Didn't he do awesome?!? I was way impressed.

Now, this next picture is our newest challenge. We have to get a section that isn't level, at least flat. How are we doing that? By chiseling away pieces. And it takes a bit of time. This was the small amount of progress Darren and I have made.
On this is at least flat, we can tile over it and then work on grout and then seal the tile. We're making it slowly but surely!

The Great Kitchen Remodel of 2011: CABINETS!

Alright, are you ready for this? We have cabinets! Wahoo! We documented the progress of the cabinets going up with LOTS of pictures (please forgive our excitement). I'll refrain from doing too many comments in the middle.

The next couple of pictures are about midway through the process. They even include a picture of one of the two installers.

And now, for the finished cabinets...Tada! (no counter tops yet and the walls need to be painted. :))

Hooray for cabinets!

I've forbidden Darren and Loren from using them until the floor is finished because I'm worried that once the kitchen is functional they'll lose the desire to finish. I admit I'm excited to find out how everything fits in the new kitchen. I'll say it one more time, hooray!!!

The Great Kitchen Remodel of 2011: Tiling part one

Tiling has begun! The focus was put on getting the tile laid where the cabinets would be going so we won't have to push back the date for the cabinets installation (again, May 12, cross your fingers!) Darren was nice enough to take these pictures.

It's looking pretty good right? I'm super excited for all of this to be completed. The boys have been working really hard while I... Um... Well... I occasionally sort tile?

Great Kitchen Remodel of 2011: Subfloor and leveling

It's time for another update! Over the last two weeks, Darren had to replace a giant piece of subfloor. I didn't get a picture of the giant gaping hole, but I did get pics after it was fixed.

Notice how a giant portion of the floor looks new? It's because it is! This is where the sink used to be so it was all rotted underneath.
That's Darren sweeping up getting things ready for backerboard.
This section is bad news. The floor wasn't level.. It sinks towards the back left corner of this picture. So they laid down pieces of plywood left over from subfloor repair to try to get it closer to level then poured self leveling compound down to fill in the gaps.
This was after the first batch of self leveling compound.
This was after the second batch. You can't tell, but some of the plywood is sticking up on the other side. That's going to be sanded down before backboard can be put down on top of it.
This is the backerboard pre-tile.

And this is Loren and Darren just overjoyed at working. Next: Tiling!!!

Great kitchen remodel of 2011: Alternative Layout

When the cabinets were removed, I got to thinking there might be a way to keep the nice open feel the kitchen suddenly had. When we went to Home Depot to pick up the floor stripper, I stopped by their kitchen area and talked to a fantastic associate named Ken. He helped me draw up a quick idea of what it would look like to wrap the cabinets instead of the previous layout. Here are the pics that he came up with. We would appreciate the input of family and friends!

Pros: This keeps a much more open floor plan and it actually adds about 22 inches worth of cabinet space! Wahoo!

Cons: You would have to walk around the corner to get to the fridge or anything in the cabinets by the fridge while cooking.

It would also eliminate the dedicated dining room area however we were thinking the table could go in the corner by the windows and have some nice light.

Let us know what you think!

Great kitchen remodel of 2011: Living room/storage room

During this kitchen remodel, the kitchen wares and food had to go somewhere. Well, let me show you where that "somewhere" currently is.

This is before the rearranging. We just stacked stuff at first, hoping there would be enough room.
This is after we had to clean out everything from the kitchen to remove tile.
This is the hallway after I rearranged and did some cleanup.
This is the living room after the rearranging and cleaning up. Yup. That's what the living room will be like for the next few weeks. Good news is there's room to sit on the couch and we can still see the TV. So relaxing after a day of working on the kitchen is now a possibility!

Great kitchen remodel of 2011: Tile Removal

After the cabinets were removed we headed over to Home Depot and rented a floor stripper. There are lots of pictures of this project so I'll explain the process along the way.

This here is Darren using the floor stripper. In the beginning, much progress was made!
The machine has a blade that vibrates and is supposed to get under the tile and thin set and glue and scrape it off the floor. This worked out okay at first.
This is Shae taking off the baseboards so the tile was easier to get to.
This is what the back splash looked like after I took off the tiles. And yes, they did indeed glue the tile directly to the drywall.
This is Loren and Darren working on a particularly stubborn section of tile once the blade was no longer sharp and not doing as good of a job.
At this point, I left to go to Home Depot to get a new blade. They didn't have one.
So Darren started to hammer at the floor while Loren was stripping it to try to finish the job. Not super effective but better than doing it by hand.

I look like I'm working right? I tried to be helpful. I got to work the machine a bit and helped Darren hammer.

This is what Eddie did while we worked in the kitchen. Hid from the scary machine and hammers.
After we moved the dishwasher, there was more evidence of the great mouse war of 2010. Yup my friends, that's all mouse poo.
This is the kitchen after some clean up, taken from the back door.
This is the kitchen after some clean up taken from the front door.
This is the crew relaxing after they stopped for the night.

Next: Living room/storage room.

Great kitchen remodel of 2011: Cabinet removal

Next on the kitchen remodel, the cabinets were removed! Hooray! Darren posted an ad on Craigslist saying they were free if someone wanted to remove them. He received about 10 offers! Apparently free cabinets are all the rage. Saturday morning at about 9:15, two gentlemen showed up to take the cabinets away. Farewell cabinets! Here are some pictures after they are gone.

This is a picture taken from about where the cabinets used to be, looking at the dining room. Not much changed here, but it will!
This is taken from about where the old cabinets by the fridge were.
This is taken from the back door. That's Darren sweeping up the gross that was under the cabinets. He's a good Darren.

This is taken from the front door area. Look how much space that opened up!

Does everyone remember the great mouse battle of 2010? Do you see that hole along the baseboard to the right? That's where the little vermin were getting in!

And just for fun, here's Eddie checking out the new discovered mouse hole. Don't worry though. Even though it looks like he's checking to see if he can attack the mice who may want to invade our home, I assure you the dog is perfectly useless in that respect.

Next: Tile removal!