Kitchen demo days...
Since we have cooperative weather and a few empty garbage bins, it's the perfect time to start the demo to the kitchen. The bottom cabinets, layers of paneling over the wainscoting, concrete Sheetrock and wall tiles are pulling out fairly easily. The electric wiring is an awful mess... a rusted junction box right next to a leaky sink... just an accident waiting to happen! And, plumbing without shut-off valves... one can tell this kitchen has gone through several bad renovations. This kitchen will be a complete gut, right down to the studs mainly because we need new mechanical and electrical... but also because the previous renovations has done so much damage to the plaster, it is coming off the lathe. We will also re-arrange the kitchen so that the refrigerator will actually be in the kitchen instead of the back hall entryway. CRazy!
The floor has four layers of flooring. The linoleum tiles stuck onto another linoleum sheet stuck over a layer of concrete Sheetrock over the original wood flooring over the original sub-flooring. The walls aren't much better... plaster, covered by wallpaper... covered by wainscoting... covered by paneling... and where there is no paneling, a layer of stucco.... and finally tile. Yes, ... they stuccoed the wainscoting. I feel that once we remove all the layers from the walls and floors, we may actually gain some living square footage!
While most would just take a sledge hammer and start breaking walls, I prefer deconstruction rather than demolition. I am curious to see how this house lived... what care the previous owners put into the home... and the pride of the original builders. Removing each layer telling its story, I can see that in 1935, the quality of the workmanship and the materials used where top of the line... and then later, the owners tried to replicate the style but integrated it with a very southwestern European influence (mainly Portuguese) in a bungalow home that just didn't mesh with the original design. After all this exploration in deconstruction, I hope to bring back the splendor of this fantastic little craftsman bungalow but with transitional upgrades.
Since we have cooperative weather and a few empty garbage bins, it's the perfect time to start the demo to the kitchen. The bottom cabinets, layers of paneling over the wainscoting, concrete Sheetrock and wall tiles are pulling out fairly easily. The electric wiring is an awful mess... a rusted junction box right next to a leaky sink... just an accident waiting to happen! And, plumbing without shut-off valves... one can tell this kitchen has gone through several bad renovations. This kitchen will be a complete gut, right down to the studs mainly because we need new mechanical and electrical... but also because the previous renovations has done so much damage to the plaster, it is coming off the lathe. We will also re-arrange the kitchen so that the refrigerator will actually be in the kitchen instead of the back hall entryway. CRazy!
The floor has four layers of flooring. The linoleum tiles stuck onto another linoleum sheet stuck over a layer of concrete Sheetrock over the original wood flooring over the original sub-flooring. The walls aren't much better... plaster, covered by wallpaper... covered by wainscoting... covered by paneling... and where there is no paneling, a layer of stucco.... and finally tile. Yes, ... they stuccoed the wainscoting. I feel that once we remove all the layers from the walls and floors, we may actually gain some living square footage!
While most would just take a sledge hammer and start breaking walls, I prefer deconstruction rather than demolition. I am curious to see how this house lived... what care the previous owners put into the home... and the pride of the original builders. Removing each layer telling its story, I can see that in 1935, the quality of the workmanship and the materials used where top of the line... and then later, the owners tried to replicate the style but integrated it with a very southwestern European influence (mainly Portuguese) in a bungalow home that just didn't mesh with the original design. After all this exploration in deconstruction, I hope to bring back the splendor of this fantastic little craftsman bungalow but with transitional upgrades.
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 North wall | ||||
 East wall | .jpg) | |||
 South wall | Data 9 | |||
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