Kitchen Chaos!

Wow! This is what our kitchen looks like after 1.5 weeks of construction. It is completely gutted and now has the new support beam in place.

It is maybe hard to tell from this pic, but when you stand in the old doorway leading to the living room, it feels huge! Almost like it isn't even our own house. I know it will feel smaller when the drywall goes up and the cabinets go in, but it will be so amazing! I just can't wait.

Here you can see the support beam - the lighter colored wood. You can also see where the mudroom used to be (the black area in the upper left hand corner.)

I think it is so cool that these board are 100 years old!

This corner is where the butler's pantry used to be and the area from the window to the wall will be the new 1/2 bath.

Here is our new entryway into the dining room. It is in a much better location now. Also, do you see where the pipes are? This is where the original sink used to be. Also, when we tore down the kitchen wall we found the footprint where the original backyard door was. There was a door and window there that lead to an outside covered porch that eventually became the mudroom.

Here you can see the staircase leading up from the kitchen and the floorboards we are replacing with new ones. We are also hoping to replace as much of the old plumbing going to the second floor as possible. Some of it is encased in cement though. Not sure what to do about that.

Here is the new beam. Chris did a really great job. It won't be completely hidden but originally he was afraid it would stick out of the ceiling by 9" after it was dry-walled. That means we would have had to change our kitchen cabinet layout.

A view from the new dining room entryway.

Here is our temporary kitchen. A microwave and fridge. Luckily, no one likes to cook anymore so there are many microwave meal options available at the store. :) We have also had all our cabinets arrive and have to go through all the boxes within a week. I've already found two I want to send back.

We can't turn our heater on because we have to reroute a lot of the HVAC. It was 50 degrees downstairs this morning. Pretty darn cold.

Carolyn gets all cozy.

Johanna is warm blooded like her Daddy and doesn't seem to mind the cold much.

We have cabinets everywhere but really I don't want to complain too much because we are very lucky we are able to do such an extensive remodel. It will be so awesome in the end. We can't wait! 

The only thing that is really stressing me out right now is staying comfortable with two small children during this loud and messy period. I am also really paranoid about lead dust and hope we are keeping our family as healthy as possible. We were lucky to be able to go to Emporia during the demo portion and the workers have tried really hard to keep the demo area sealed. 

We may invest in a HEPA vacuum and then after the floors are all redone, we will clean the entire house top to bottom. 

Anyhow, stay posted for updates!