Hemm Family Adventures: And so it begins: Kitchen 2.0

It has been a number of years since I posted anything. I guess our day to day became more mundane or easily shareable in socially accepted social media bites. But now we have BIG NEWS!!

THE KITCHEN RENOVATIONS HAVE FINALLY STARTED!!

And I'm sure that 90% of my FaceBook friends and others have no desire to see all of the pictures and bits that I think are really fascinating. But for those that are more interested, you are welcome. Check back here frequently as I update progress, share pictures, and express gratitude to all the family and friends who make this sort of project possible.

The History

We moved in to this house during April vacation 2012 - 5 years ago - and at that time said that the kitchen remodel would be in the next 3-5 years. We just barely stuck to that deadline. Phew! Why did we want to remodel? Here is from when we moved in:

What you don't see here is that the stovetop was broken, the microwave and vent were busted, the fridge was moldy, the light switches fizzled, lights didn't work and there is no dishwasher. We made a number of small improvements to the functionality but it looked essentially the same to the end and it was... ok.

Over the past years I've dreamed, sketched, and pinned ideas for a new kitchen while we saved up. And now finally it is happening.

Marker Party

Last year our good friends, the Kuhn's, had a party the day before their kitchen reno where they unleashed kids with markers. Lucas was dying to do the same and so we had a couple of friends over on Sunday. Creativity, crudeness, and hilarity ensued.

Izzy, Gabe, Katelyn, Anna, and Lucas leaving their mark:

At the end there wasn't an untagged surface - poop emojis to science humor:

Demo Day

After the kids had their fun, the grown ups had their turn. With a lot of help from friends and family, we finished the demolition in ONE DAY!! We are forever indebted to Scott, Bill, Gail, The Kuhns, and The Clarks for all their muscle and sweat. From smashing to sweeping, we are so appreciative of our friends and family. We couldn't have done this without you.

Ceiling demo began before lunch!

Justin got home from taking Bill and Gail to the airport and was floored at the progress!

Fun Findings

We were fortunate to have found no big, unpleasant surprises during demolition. There were some archaeological findings that I always enjoy:

Note the hurricane corners in the picture above. I had never seen those before.
We found wadded up newspaper from 1956 which was older than I would have thought. I had in my mind that the house was built in the 60s.
The floor included at least 5 layers of linoleum - red, small brown tile, larger beige tile, black and white speckled checker board, and the faux wood. Also we had 1 or 2 layers of lewan and 3/4" of plywood above the subfloor
This note to the plumber from the original builder: "Mr. Plumber, Can you bring water feed up and out straight? Need at least 8" from floor! Be right back"