Home Over the Range

Big E has become enamored with Facebook Marketplace.

His latest find was an over the range microwave for $25.

Since I've wanted one

 (I hate that we use precious counter space for the microwave we have)

and this one seemed like it was in pretty decent shape,

he went and got it.

That meant cleaning out all the spices and meds from the cabinet.

So I cleaned out the cabinet,

and finally Big E had an evening to get to work.

He had to cut the cabinet above the stove.

He used this really cool gadget called an oscillating tool.

I NEED one. 

It didn't take long to get everything cut to make room for the microwave.

Really, I didn't even have to move the canning supplies until

he was ready to drill holes for screws and wires.

Take a look at the wall color on the plaster!

After a few hiccups,

we got the thing mounted and in place.

Big E used an extension cord to make sure it worked

(thank goodness it did).

We just needed to cut the doors down to fit 

and put them back in place.

Once everything was back in place,

you couldn't even tell that the doors were cut. 

I'm thrilled with this over the range microwave.

It's much bigger than the one on the counter top,

and now I have a bit more counter space.

New Floor

 These are photos of the kitchen from last year

before we started doing anything.

 You can see the duct tape patch on the floor

where Miss Bertha sat in her kitchen chair.

 The kitchen "table" at the time

was actually a cabinet and countertop

that we removed.

 We painted the walls and removed the linoleum

to find mostly hardwood floors.

But in the back portion of the kitchen, there was plywood subflooring.

This is the area that was added onto the house after it was built.

The line where the hardwood meets plywood is the original

footprint of the house.

I spent a lot of time worrying over that hardwood.

I went through a ton of possibilities of what I could do to save it.

But in the end, 

the reality that there was concrete under the plywood

and the very worn condition of the hardwood

plus the amount of water the dogs slop everywhere,

I decided to go with my original plan of putting down vinyl tiles.

Big E laid the first one in place.

And here we have a teaching moment.

While talking about the best way to attack the floor, 

I mentioned the instructions on the back of the box.

Big E mentioned he had done this before and wanted to start in a corner along the wall.

I agreed to go with his thoughts as I had never done any of this before.

So we started along the wall.

 It goes pretty easily once you get your first tile in place.

 But you really need to follow instructions on the box.  

Especially when your house doesn't have a straight line in it

to save its life

and you're laying tiles with a checkerboard pattern.

You can see the tiles by the doorway are crooked

compared to the tiles Big E is working on in the photo below.

We ended up needing to order 2 more boxes of tile

to replace what we started using.

Once we got things lined up and on the right track, 

it was simple to gets things put down.

And now we have a shiny new kitchen floor.

I miss the hardwood, 

but I surely don't miss the plywood!

Big E also removed the light fixture above the table.

So all that's left in the kitchen for now

is to get the cabinet painted white.

Guess What's Happening!

It's time to say buh-bye! to the kitchen floor.

Part of me is still a little sad about not being able to salvage the hardwood,

but the larger part of me is happy to see the plywood

disappear. 

I Love a Parade

Especially when it's a parade of old kitchen cabinets

making it's way out of the old upstairs kitchen and into the garage.

Finally.

Big E enlisted the help of a couple of friends, 

and they got the last big pieces of cabinetry out of the house

and into the garage workshop area.

So now, with the exception of a small cabinet Big E can carry himself

and the drawers for the bigger cabinets,

the upstairs kitchen is ready to be cleaned until it's time to rip out the walls.

Wall demo will be well down the road since the windows, Downstairs bathroom

and the dining room all need to happen first

(and in time for Thanksgiving).

A BIG thank you! to the fellas who helped us out!

Kitchen Reveal

It's been a while since the kitchen walls were painted, 

and finally (thanks to being confined because of the snow)

I finished the trim and most of the touchups.

So, here's the kitchen process.

First photo is the kitchen as it was originally.

Note the "table" to the left- 

it was actually a cabinet with laminate counter top.

The fridge had apple stickers on it,

the floor had duct tape over areas that had been worn down.

 First we removed the built in "table".

Then we removed the vinyl flooring,

which revealed hardwood on most of the floor.

We attempted to removed the wallpaper paneling, 

but discovered the plaster walls were in very bad shape.

The decision was made to paint over the paneling.

Primer made a HUGE improvement.

Notice the cabinet by the doorway

(it's white on top, brown on bottom)

It's been the topic of much discussion on what to do with it.

Painted brown it was an eyesore, 

and I was thinking of taking off the top door to see if it made a difference.

 On the agenda is removing the retro lamp.

 We started cutting in.

And I want to say another THANK YOU! 

.to my family who helped.

 When my dad saw the color he wanted to know 

if we were opening a bordello.

(he's also not fond of the red front door)

Here is the finished product.

Turns out the white on the cabinet made a world of difference.

I'm using it as is for storing my small appliances.

The floor isn't done, of course.

There is some serious hope that I'll be able to remove the plywood,

and put down hardwood in the back part of the kitchen.

I don't want to lose the hardwood floors.

This spring, the cabinets will be updated.

I'll be adding some 1x2's to frame the doors and then paint them white.

But for now, they're fine.

Amazing what a few coats of paint can do.

(Note: red paint takes several coats before it's covered. 

 I should have tinted the primer red but didn't.  I think that would have made a difference. 

 I applied about 2 1/2 coats- after the 2nd coat I only had to spot treat the light areas)

Primed and Ready to Go

This is the kitchen.

There used to be a "built in" table

under that light that was made out of cabinets and counter top.

And against this wall where the folding table sits

used to be a large wall cabinet on the wall.

The plan is to build a ceiling to floor 

pantry here.

Hopefully this summer

as there is basically no pantry space and it's driving me nuts.

This coming Saturday,

myself and my merry band of painters

are tackling the kitchen.

Because the plaster walls behind the paneling 

(the wallpaper is paneling too)

are in very bad shape and we aren't ready to tackle that yet,

we're painting over the paneling to freshen up the kitchen.

That means priming the walls.

Last night I managed to get 2 coats on the walls.

I still need to put a second coat on some trim,

and I have some spots of something 

(grease?)

 bleeding through that I need to try to cover.

(you'd think 2 coats of primer would take care of it)

Even just the primer improves the space.

I can't wait to see the transformation!

Where the Hardwood Ends

My biggest dilemma so far has been how to save the kitchen hardwood floor.

In the photo, you can see where the original house ended 

and the new house began.

So far, the consensus was that the floor joists in the newer section

were higher than the original joists to make the subfloor even

with the hardwood.

This meant that no new hardwood could be added

because any new floor would not be even with the existing floor.

We had plans to cover the floor with tile, 

but I just couldn't bear to do it.

However, I'm now 99% sure that the consensus is wrong.

We noticed that the bathroom floor is lower than the kitchen floor.

Both are part of the newer section

and if the joists had been made to be higher, the bathroom floor should be the same height

as the kitchen floor.

So I did some poking in the basement, 

and I'm pretty sure

(with my limited know-how) 

that the joists are even and the plywood was added so linoleum could be laid over the hardwood.

This means that we can keep the hardwood we have

 and add hardwood to the newer section to make one big hardwood floor.

I won't know for sure until we pull up the plywood to have a look,

but I'm hopeful!

The Evils of Flooring

Our flooring removal extended beyond the living room.

The next carpet on the chopping black was the dining room carpet.

When we removed the living room carpet, 

we revealed gorgeous 100 year old hardwood floors

with minimal amount of wear.

What would the dining room reveal?

It revealed that someone actually glued, 

yes, GLUED,

carpet to the 100 year old floor.

The end result was a sea of black padding

stuck to glue

stuck to the hardwood floor.

Personally, 

I think whomever decided back in the day 

that gluing anything to hardwood was
the best way to go

should be strung up and whipped.

Our only option was to scrape off the adhesive.

I'll share more on that process later.

We also needed to remove the linoleum in the kitchen.

I had peeked under the linoleum in places and knew

the hardwood was under that too.

Unfortunately, 

the hardwood did not extend the entire length of the kitchen.

As it turns out, the original foot print of the house

ended where the plywood subfloor starts.

So the area where my husband is standing is all part of an addition.

There is a header beam in the ceiling that confirms this.

So, even though the hardwood in the kitchen is in really good shape

(better than the living room)

We can't use it.

The new addition's flooring was made to be level with the existing floor

so to try to add hardwood to match would be impossible as it would be higher than the existing floor.

So, we're back to the original idea of the black and white tiles.

I can't even tell you how upsetting it is for me to cover this floor

(especially after complaining about other people doing it). 

But the addition left us no other alternative.

(Unless I convince my dad or my husband that we should pull up the old flooring, lay subfloor and put tiles on that and save the hardwood for another project- like using it to make a kitchen counter top.  But My chances of that are slim to none)

What Lies Beneath

Last night we had high hopes of getting started dry walling the one foot space between the ceiling and where the drop ceiling was in the living room.

That didn't happen.

Instead, the hubby and I opted to clean out the drop ceiling in the kitchen.

That might seem like a weird project, 

but we discovered that mice have spent years living above that awful drop ceiling.

We want to be able to start using the kitchen downstairs

(since the one upstairs is the size of a very small bedroom 

because, well, it used to be a very small bedroom)

but the thought of mouse poop hovering above our heads (and food)

wasn't very appealing.

So we ended up taking down each tile, brushing it off, vacuuming the drop ceiling tracks and tops of the cabinets and then replacing the tiles.

Be thankful I didn't take photos of all the dead bodies lining the kitchen floor.

Once that job was finished, 

Big E wanted to find another job to do.

(he wanted to listen to the Redskins game 

and could only do that on the radio downstairs)

So he decided to start pulling down the pressed cardboard tiles we found

under the drop ceiling in the dining room.

On a side note, in the above picture you can see the crazy contraption

that was built to support the ceiling fan.  

It was moved from the center of the room to about a foot and a half off center

(it will be going back where it belongs).

I also noticed a weird coloration on the ceiling and thought it was concrete.

Turns out, at some point the dining room ceiling was wall papered.

It wasn't the most attractive wallpaper I've ever seen,

but I do think it was pretty cool to find it.

Big E tore off a couple of chunks for me to save.

It reminds me of a brain.

While pulling down the ceiling, 

we found a few mouse nests made from insulation that we can only speculate came from the attic.

There were also more bodies.

Hopefully, we won't find any signs of live mice now that we've cleaned those areas out.

And if some show up, 

the cats better take care of business.

Simply Clean

First, let me say that I'm not getting any money from Simple Green to promote their product.  That isn't to say that I'd decline if they wanted to give me a few bucks for telling people how wonderful I think their product is.  And second, I'm in no way criticizing anyone's cleaning abilities.  Our landlady was 91 when she passed and was unable to climb up on her counter top to clean kitchen cabinets.  Heck, I need to watch climbing around, not to mention how sore my arms are.

So, the kitchen was in need of a major scrub down. The plan is to paint the cabinets in the future, so I really needed to scrub them clean so I won't have to do much sanding in the future.   The regular cleaners weren't working very well on the grease buildup, so I went and got some Simple Green.  I wasn't sure if it would be strong enough either as it is considered non-hazardous and environmentally safer than other products.  I typically equate that to not being strong enough. 

I filled an empty spray bottle with undiluted Simple Green, sprayed the areas, let it sit for a minute then scrubbed away.  It did the trick.  And it did the trick without the need to use a respirator or chemical gloves, and it smells pretty good. 
So if you have a tough cleaning job, or any cleaning job, I'd recommend Simple Green.  It works and it's environmentally friendly.  Win-win.

There have been a lot of other things going on, and I promise I'll share the progress in due time.