Kitchen Project: Work in progress

Behind the Stove

The wall in the picture to the right happened to be one of those
"little" issues that turned out to be a whole day and night ordeal.

A simple task to remove the vent opening behind the stove revealed
that the mortar from the exterior bricks prevented the wallboard from
going in flush.  Hubby and sons had to remove the wall, insulation, mortar, vent opening and start from almost scratch.

When the new 2x4 stud went in, the 220 volt outlet for the stove also had to be moved.  Little did we know that "just moving it over" could have cost us cabinet placement due to not measuring where the new tall pantry cabinet was going to be placed.

 My middle son is caulking before the insulation and rest of the wall goes up.



















Since the home was built in 1972, wood-look paneling was the wall of choice, and
we had a plethora of it.  What we thought was
drywall when we bought the house, turned out to
be paneling.  The crevices had been filled in with drywall mud.  All it took for us to discover this was to attempt to hang the first picture.  So, to keep the walls flush, we chose to use paneling behind the stove.  This would be covered by the cabinetry and backsplash.

 To quote my husband, "All that work to simply make a window into the family room?!?"

That wasn't the initial intention.  The original plan was to completely open it up but the discovery of drainpipes from our upstairs master bath in the wall created the necessity of building this wall.  It meets up with the header that we would have preferred to not have.....but again, a load-bearing wall needs that.  Sigh.  So much for wide-open.

The walls and ceiling are getting the drywall treatment of their lives.  My cousin is a drywall pro (Designer Drywall & Custom Finishes) so it's sort of like these old walls had a visit to the
spa.

Here's the much-desired effect:  to finally have visibility between the kitchen and family room.

The view will be much better from the family room into the kitchen.  The ASTRONOMICAL bill for all the necessary electric work cost us the new sectional sofa.



I strongly suggested that my sons look into becoming electricians.

Sigh.  Again.

More kitchen stuff coming.