Sis. et. al. v. The Cabinet

Matt's sister came up over Thanksgiving weekend to help on the house.

Can't you see the family resemblance?! We were thrilled to see her, and Sam was especially so.


We decided that the first order of business was the kitchen cabinets. The goal was to get the kitchen done before we moved in. So, off to work we went.

The before:
We wanted to remove this top right kitchen cabinet that divided the kitchen area and the dining room. It made the kitchen dark and cramped and it also closed off the dining room. We decided that if we took it down, it would open the space up and make it lighter.

With the cabinet doors off, we knocked out the wall-board covering the soffit.

We thought this job would be complete in an hour or two. How hard can it be to pull some cabinets from the ceiling, right?

So, off to work.

Matt had a plan of how to separate the cabinets so as to easily get it down while not damaging the existing cabinets that we want to keep and refinish. The cabinet builders from 1959, however, had a different plan. They decided to use a gazillion long nails in all the tightest, littlest places they could find so as to discourage any future modification. It turned into a battle of wills and crowbars.



Just so you know, iron wills and crowbars ALWAYS win. It took about 20 man hours for us to get this cabinet down, but it came down. After the crowbars had loosened everything up, I got up on the counter and kicked. that. cabinet. down.

If only we had caught that on camera! Alas, everyone else was on the floor catching the falling cabinet.

We do, however, have pictures of the aftermath.

The warriors and their spoil

The vanquished foe

The battle scars

The victory shot

This kitchen will live to see more battles, certainly. But for now, score 1 for us!

First day

The day after we closed on the house and had the open house was actually Sam's birthday party. After his party at the pool, a few of his friends came over to the house. They played dart guns for the first little while, while Matt and I worked.




The first job is the kitchen cabinets. That lovely wallpaper on the soffit was the first thing to go.




I was surprised how much changed by just taking that little bit of wallpaper off. The busy pattern gave way to a much more open feel of one color--even if it is an ugly color.

The next task was taking down the upper cabinet that divided the kitchen and dining room. These cabinets were originally intended to delineate the two spaces. To me, however, it just made the kitchen and dining room seem dark and small. Opening them up will increase the light and space.

These dark spaces will soon be light and open

I started to break through the soffit and the boys heard the hammering. They, of course, wanted to try. What 11 year old boy wouldn't want to put a hammer through a wall?!?




This handsome guy started by taking the cabinet doors off the area beneath the oven.




After the other boys left, Sam settled down with a book while Matt and I worked for a while. What do you think about the filtered mask? You'll see a lot of pictures of these masks in the posts to come.



Toward the end of the night's work, this is what the soffit looked like. Lots more to do, but that cabinet will come down whether it wants to or not!