Thursday, August 1, 2013

Chapter the Third: The Kitchen

 The kitchen as it appeared when we bought the house was a small, dark, depressing little space hardly big enough to function in. We wanted to remove the wall that separated it from the pantry/utility room, being reasonably sure that the wall was a later addition. When we began demolition we found that we were right. The partition was rough cut boards that looked like they had been repurposed from some long crumbled barn or something. They were papered with newspapers from 1918 and then multiple layers of wallpaper and finally drywall. When we began removing the drywall from the walls we found the same beaded edge paneling that is in the living room and then we removed the ceiling drywall and we found more of the same paneling! The *entire* kitchen is finished in wood paneling and there went my visions of a 1930s/40s kitchen and instead I'm gifted with an 1830s/40s kitchen! The kitchen is now a generous 15x17 space, big enough for my cookstove and farmhouse table as well as the usual kitchen appliances.

We have decided to remove the flooring back there, it was a hard decision but it has so many issues that most of it is unsaveable. There is rot from generations of leaking sinks and water heaters, they had glued Luan plywood down and since we need to replace some joists anyway it just made sense to take up the old floor completely. We are replacing it with 2x6 tongue and groove pine flooring, as close as we can get to the original while staying within the budget. What flooring is salvageable I am thinking of turning into cupboard doors.

Here is a short video I took of the kitchen, I just couldn't get pictures to show how big and bright the space is now.

                                                           

5 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness! I can see the potential... makes me want to bring my minions, help haul and scrape and paint, and see it all turned to gorgeousness! What a great space!!

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    1. Oh yes please! We could use a bigger labor force!

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  2. Eep! So exciting to see it "live"-ish. :D hugs!

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  3. That's so cool :)

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