Oh man you guys. This last week did not go as expected. I started with a bang. On Thursday I worked with some friends to take off all the cabinet doors and remove the soffit–Before we even started I decided to just focus on the one side of the kitchen. It’s the side that will make the most impact and while I’m painting and refinishing the other side, I realized I wouldn’t gain much from removing that soffit.
If you missed our plans for the kitchen, make sure you head to the One Room Challenge post for week one it has all the before pictures, some inspiration photos and a mood board for the new space.
Demo was pretty quick and easy but we ran into a snag.
Last year when Joel got up in the attic to insulate, he cleaned out all the blown insulation from the soffits and said there was nothing up there..
He might have meant no duct work or he might not have been thinking about an upcoming soffit removal because unfortunately there are electrical wires (which he can re route) and a huge bundle of wires for the air conditioning (which I think we’ll work around). Either way it wasn’t what we expected.
I sanded the cabinet doors on Saturday morning. They are oil based so my plan is to sand AND de-gloss AND prime them with bonding primer. I want the fresh paint to stick and stick well so I’m not cutting any corners. Speaking of cutting corners though….we kind of are. I shared on Instagram, we’ll be trimming the tapered edges off of the doors to give them a more modern squared off look. I’ll share all the details on that once it’s done.
Then life happened. Our sweet #trucknamedHarold broke down and needed some attention on Saturday. I took the girls out of town to spend time with my parents and we actually all got a little down time that we needed.
So this is where the kitchen stands. An electrician is coming to give us a quote for re directing the wires. From there Joel can decide if he wants to do it himself or not. Tonight we’re going to get out the table saw and maybe work on the cabinet doors and the start of the open shelving.
Someday it’ll look like this. I wish the oven could look that happy in real life : )
I named this blog post before the ORC even started because I was planning on being done with the sheet rock by the end of week one. I kept the title because I think it’s important to stress that these DIY projects hardly ever go as planned and THAT’S OKAY. Plans change a little. Things come up that need to be dealt with but we’ll finish in time and it’ll be great. An edited 30 minute home improvement show is not real life. This is and I’m good with it.
…Let’s just hope we make leaps and bounds this week.
Speaking of edited down. Here’s a quick time lapse from week one. (I made it for IGTV so pardon the portrait mode.)
And don’t forget about the to-do list! *breathe Jess, breathe
remove soffits
patch wall and ceiling
paint walls
raise upper cabinets
build backsplash
feather finish countertops
square off cabinet doors
build shelves
hang shelves
build refrigerator surround
install fb marketplace dishwasher
install fb marketplace microwave
build microwave surround
degloss, prime and paint cabinets
attach interior mount hinges
install cabinet hardware
paint floor tile grout lines
style
Head here for the progress posts from this round’s featured designers.
And follow along with the guest participants here.
Thanks for reading, friends!
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