The plan had been to wait a while before starting the kitchen. But, as can be seen here,
the living room is open into the kitchen and just the first couple of feet of the ceiling
matches. The rest is as originally built with only one of the two shop lights remaining.
It just looked too bad to wait. We started almost immediately on it next. The first thing
was to remove the old ceiling and the soffits above the cabinets as those too are not too
popular anymore. Then we could make the new ceiling join and match the living room.
After taking down the ceiling, soffits and rafters, we found another wiring mess not quite
as bad as that in the living room but certainly unacceptable. The photo also shows the new
purlin above the wall that separates the garage from the kitchen, well almost. The support
shown tilted slightly is on the top of the wall. That purlin will later be used to support
the extended roof over the back room. This is discussed in a later section on the Den. This
wiring problem, of course, was addressed with the new subpanel in the garage. The kitchen
now has two separate lighting circuits and two general outlet circuits. The latter are both
GFCI protected. In addition, each major appliance is on a separate circuit as the electrical
code requires.
These photos show the exposed rafters after everything was removed. The left one is the
refrigerator corner and the original upper cabinet. In this photo and the one above, you
can also see how far the old refrigerator extends beyond the wall separating the kitchen
from the living room. The other photo is the opposite end of the room. The beam over the
passthrough is visible at the lower end of the slope in each. We are working here with
temporary lights here although it looks like the wiring might be in place with temporary
boxes installed to plug into.
With help from a friend and son-in-law, we did the sheetrock ourselves this time. The
ceiling is sheetrocked here with permanent light fixtures installed and even the ceiling
fan. We found a really nice 36 in, 6 blade fan that is ideal in the narrow space. This is
a galley kitchen. The new upper wall is shown on the right. Note that it is not vertical.
Instead, it is aligned with the purlin supports shown above. The bottom is on the garage
wall and the top is the purlin. The space between there and the cabinet faces previously
was attic space but was too restricted to be of any use because of the low pitch.
With the sheetrock finished, we turned to the cabinets and appliances, all of which were
dated and tired. The first step was to remove and discard the cabinet doors and drawers
and build all new replacements. Rather than replace the cabinet shells, we refaced them to
save a little money and a lot of time. The new doors and drawers styled similar to the old
but are birch plywood with a cherry finish. The drawers are all of dovetail construction.
We were able to find brass and ceramic pulls that look period correct and new hinges that
match the original, including the screw holes. Two of the cabinets are new. The new
side-by-side refrigerator is both taller and wider than the old one. The cabinet between
it and the range had to be replaced as it did not allow enough space. The cabinet above
had to be removed and I built a new full depth one to replace it. The one beside that
just had to be moved over a little.
Here, the counter tops have been removed awaiting replacements. Next is the laminate being
applied on the long section. It was installed using the traditional contact cement. That,
however, is not water proof and water does eventually find its way through the seams and
joints. To prevent that, I glued the last couple of inches around the edges and seams with
polyurethane cement, which is water proof. It does require clamping for about 4 hours
though. As they say, "you can never have too many clamps." Here is that same refrigerator
corner shown above but with the sheetrock finished, the matching wood veneer applied to the
refrigerator and the new cabinet in place. Also, see how much better the cabinet-depth
refrigerator fits with the separating wall. Finally, here is the Jenn-Air dual fuel range
and the Bosch dishwasher. The refrigerator doesn't yet have its wood face.
The tentative long-range plan at the time was to turn the sink 90 degrees and open a walk
through into the den. With that in mind, we selected laminate materials for the counter
tops as a temporary measure. After the change later, we would go with granite or some other
solid surface. Later consideration proves this to be an impractical change. There is just
not enough room and the cost or work would be really excessive. I think the configuration
will remain as is but I would still like to upgrade the counter tops sometime as they are
already showing some signs of wear.
We had previously altered an alcove in the living room to open into the kitchen instead and
created a small pantry in it. Here it is finished and under construction. The uppder section
currently holds an extensive set of china and the lower has six drawers that are used for a
mix of items. There is a large drawer on the bottom that holds several cast iron and other
large, heavy cooking utensils. The sliding shelf below the microwave is useful for removing
and checking hot stuff. The legs on that shelf at the bottom fold up and it slides into the
cabinet above the large drawer. It is a handy step for reaching the stuff in the top section.
Finally, there is an open alcove above all for decorative purposes.
The tile floor had been done several years before. Originally, it was vinyl tile over a
plywood subfloor. Spills and other mishaps over the previous 40 plus years had raken a pretty
serious toll on the tile and subfloor. We removed it all and substituted cement underlayment
for the plywood then topped it off with this ceramic tile. A little over $7,000 and we have
what seems to be an almost new kitchen. And here it is all finished.