skilled labor

Don took the week off this week to demolish and rebuild the floor in the unused half of the kitchen. We ripped out the bathroom and closets over there a while ago, so it was ready for the floors to be ripped up and rebuilt. Just as he did in the rest of the house, he either sistered joists or laid new ones to create a level base for a new subfloor.

The mudroom created a bit more of a problem - it was, inexplicably, built upon some kind of concrete slab. So when he ripped out the floor, expecting to find more crawlspace, he found instead... concrete. Really hard concrete. It took him all day yesterday just to drill holes in it to secure a low frame for the new subfloor.

Today, all that's left of the project is one section of subfloor and then to run the plumbing for the washer and dryer back out to the mudroom - it got cut back during demolition as it was all over the place. We'd planned to run it beneath the floor - but now we know why it was above the floor to begin with, as there is no way to get anything through that concrete. So we'll run it neatly on the floor along the wall and built a small soffit around it, which will in turn be covered by some sort of bench or shoe rack.

The last step, of course, is to get the washer and dryer out of the dining room and back in place so I can do all of the laundry that's built up this week...

kitchen pinterest

Since it's become clear that we will be at least doing SOME of the kitchen renovation this year - we uncovered some pipes during demolition of the unused half of the kitchen, and they'll have to be re-covered before the first hard freeze! - I've taken the opportunity to make myself a 'kitchen ideas' board on Pinterest, so I can make note of things that I'm thinking about doing in there.

We have a basic idea of what we're doing - we know the cabinets we'll be using, and we have at least a vague idea of what will go where. There are still a few decisions to be made, layout-wise - like, will we put a separate freezer in the hall closet, or just make it all pantry space? (For the record, I want the freezer - I HATE the idea of having to go to the basement for the spare freezer, and thus if we put one there it'll never get used. Pointless.) And we can't really pull together an exact plan until the room is empty - who knows what's behind that drywall? There's no way to plan to the inch until every inch is exposed.

But we know, in a general sense, where the sink and stove and refrigerator will go, etc. So I've been thinking about finishes, and organization, and that sort of thing. Hence, Pinterest. Feel free to take a look over there if you're interested in the things I'm thinking about, kitchen-wise.

via 'for love of a house'