Upstairs Kitchen Project @ Zebranest

"Pull up the carpeting, take out the cabinets and kitchen appliances, and turn into another bedroom."

[Taken from June's Chronicles Of Home] We thought, when we moved in, that it would be convenient to have two kitchens. We expected to utilize the upstairs kitchen as the "main" one, where we cooked and ate most of our family meals, and use the downstairs kitchen just as an annex for when we entertained. The upstairs kitchen has a good amount of cabinet and other storage space and has the dishwasher. Downstairs, there's barely room for two people to stand, and there's definitely not enough space for all the dishes and cookware.

Times they are a-changing. The upstairs stove and oven never worked properly, and when we invoked our home warranty service the repairman said it had faulty wiring and, besides, we shouldn't be turning on an oven that sits on top of carpet (yes, the upstairs kitchen is fully carpeted). All right, so we can't really cook upstairs... at least we could still eat cereal and microwaved leftovers, until the past week or so when I noticed that there was an unpleasant rotting-food smell in the upstairs refrigerator, and started to wonder if it might be due to the fact that the fridge doesn't keep very cold anymore. My suspicions were confirmed by Rick this weekend -- the refrigerator is dying. So if we can't cook up here, and can't keep food cold up here, what exactly is the point of having a kitchen up here? Carting dishes and food from the pantry up and down the stairs is getting old quick, and even the lure of the dishwasher is growing stale since I've found the dishwasher isn't efficient and requires you to basically pre-wash every dish before loading it.

All this coupled with the stunning circa-1970s recreational vehicle decor, and we've decided the upstairs kitchen is going back to its roots as a bedroom.

July 5

Well, we don't really have any plans, any money for remodeling, or a whole lot of free time, but Rick got started anyway ripping up the carpet in the upstairs kitchen. Maybe he was just feeling destructive. Under the carpet was a crusty rotted layer of padding, and under that we've found the wood flooring. Right now it appears reddish from all the dust and crust from the padding, but Rick thinks that with some sanding the wood will be in good shape.

January 18

Plans are changing again. As we've lived in the house for 9 months now, we've gotten a feel for how we use rooms. We always come in the back door, through the kitchen into the dining room, and so the dining room becomes the dumping place for jackets, backpacks, shopping bags, papers and mail. At the same time, the downstairs kitchen just isn't big enough for doing even our minimal cooking in, and Rick says he would like to do more cooking and baking if there was only more room.

So, the latest plan, and the one that we're going ahead on, is to move back to the upstairs kitchen. The upstairs refrigerator doesn't work, so we'll move the one downstairs up. The upstairs stove doesn't work either, so we are getting one from a friend who remodeled. We're going to redo the floor and tear out at least the bottom cabinets so we can move the sink and dishwasher and put in new cabinets. We might leave the upper cupboards in but paint them.

We're also going to move the dining room upstairs to what is now the family room, since we know that we can't cook food on one floor and eat it on another. We're going to tear up the carpet in the family room and attempt to go back to the original hardwood floor. We'll redo the walls and see about exposing the original chimney. What is now the dining room, downstairs, will become the family room, the place where mail and papers and homework belongs.

I'd like to tile the kitchen floor in large reddish stone-look ceramic tiles, like this:

And I'm thinking if we leave the cupboards in place, I'd like to paint them white and perhaps put a small border or accent design on the door fronts using small tiles that match or complement the floor tiles.

March 14

We've got the kitchen all good and torn up. Becky single-handedly took out the countertop and then removed the cabinets, all in one day. Rick had to get the sink and dishwasher.

no more cabinets You can see in this picture that the window used to be much bigger, back when this room was not a kitchen at all.

Next on the agenda is pulling out the carpet in the dining room and then sanding the floor of both rooms. We also have to decide what we're going to do with the chimney in the middle -- how many layers of paneling and drywall to remove.

October 10

In September we ripped up the rest of the carpet in the dining room, and Rick took out the wall cabinets in the kitchen. The dishwasher was the last appliance that remained, and he unhooked the water pipes and cut the electric line (the dishwasher had been hardwired in rather than plugged). Do not try this at home, kids: He assumed that the breakers for the kitchen were all turned to off, but they were not, and the wire he cut was a live one. I'm guessing that the rubber handles on the wire cutter saved him from whatever fate would have befallen him, and so the BANG and the ball of sparks were the only consequence.

This past weekend we moved most of the debris so far from the kitchen and dining room, and with the help of Tom and Jamie began taking down paneling. Under the paneling in the kitchen we found a mixed bag of old drywall, plaster, glue, more paneling, and even a thin sheet of something like formica. Once we started into the dining room, though, a peek under the paneling revealed nothing but the wall construction and insulation. There are also plenty of holes we've uncovered that did not have any insulation, or where whatever had been there had disintegrated. I have a feeling when this renovation is complete these two rooms will be somewhat more energy efficient.

When we removed the paneling and trim from around the windows, we uncovered the empty cavities used by sash windows, likely the windows original to the house. Inside the cavities we found the iron weights themselves! There were two for each side, so I assume the original sash windows were double hung.

Double pane replacement windows were installed at some point, likely during the remodel that was performed sometime in the 70s (resulting in all the paneling). The seal on those windows has failed and the panes are cloudy, so replacing them is going to be part of our remodel, too.

In reading about sash windows, I'm regretting that they were removed. Whereas replacement windows are made to be replaced themselves, these old rope-and-pulley windows were built to last and many were mistakenly scrapped in the name of energy efficiency.

October 15

Tom came over last night, and he and Rick bought 10 sheets of drywall at Home Depot to begin putting up. Unfortunately, the drywall screws they got were not long enough to go through the existing drywall into the studs.Things seemed very bleak at this point -- the walls looked awful, the floor was a mess, and it seemed that there was nothing we could do. Tom and Rick decided to demolish the outer layer of drywall surrounding the chimney.

We found that the first layer of drywall was put up over a frame built with 2x4s. However the second layer looks like it was applied directly over the brick of the chimney. What we can see of the chimney is not attractive, and the gas fireplace that was attached outside the frame vents into it through some hole they cut. I'm not sure at this point what we're going to do about all that.

Today Jamie came over with Tom and things went a little better. She has experience putting up drywall, and had longer drywall screws. They stayed all afternoon and into the evening. By the end of the night we had gotten several of the walls covered and a lot of the debris from the night before picked up off the floor and carted outside. I feel a lot better about the state of the kitchen tonight than I did last night.