The fun has begun...

The kitchen has been completely boxed up. (How do we have SO MUCH kitchen stuff?!!) The temporary kitchen is ready for business. The contractors have started swinging hammers. Oh and, of course, TubaDad is on a plane. Big day.

I promised my family and friends lots of pictures to document the process, so here goes.

First, the “before.” Not horrible if you’re standing 15 feet away, I guess:

But if you take a closer look, you’ll see why we’re not refinishing these cabinets: cheap, yellowing, falling-apart builder-grade. Every drawer face has fallen off and been “mickey moused” back on.

Every surface has been scratched, damaged, and then “touched up” with stain in an attempt to conceal (done before we moved in) and some doors have been replaced with newer ones that don’t quite match:

The tile countertops were haphazardly installed and are now showing bits of plastic through the grout lines, among other things. I really hate grout. Oh, which reminds me, the floor is red (SO not our taste) and has 1-inch thick black sunken grout, which mocks all attempts to sweep it.

Cannot wait to be rid of that floor. Or that oven, which is really not a bad little oven but has had a broken door that has been propped shut by a chair for the last two months because we knew it was going to be replaced and didn’t want to waste money repairing it:

By the way, our contractor just found burnt wires and connectors behind the oven. He said we were lucky we didn’t have a fire.

Here’s our temporary kitchen in the office and adjacent laundry room. We moved the old second island from the kitchen and set it up here and used an old wire rack bin from the garage as our pantry. The island will eventually be moved upstairs to the playroom to hold the girls’ art supplies. All TubaDad’s ideas and he did a bang-up job!:

The fridge has been relocated to the family room for the time being, the front door is wide open (I always forget about that part of home renovation and am thankful we didn’t plan this for the dead of winter), and the demolition has begun.

We’re going down to the sheetrock (and in some places the studs), and when all is said and done will have dark custom cabinets all the way around the kitchen (including in the new island and under and around the window), big veiny granite slab counters, and new stainless steel sink, double ovens, big rangetop, cream backsplash and tan travertine flooring. Woohoo!

Alrighty, I hear a crazy amount of banging and ripping -- I’d better go take another picture or two. Cheers!