Kitchen Floor Finishing

This is where we left off:

With the old floor removed, our good friend and contractor Lee sanded the original fir floor.

Sanding alone was an improvement:

And finally:

This last picture doesn't show much, but the floor looks great. Lee calls it "rustic." It could also be called "way better than what we had before."

Kitchen Demolition

This week, we moved into full cabinet demolition. Sledge hammer, claw hammer, scrapers, heat guns, paint remover, crow bar, pry bar and circular saw all helped us handle this task. Let's just get straight to the pictures.

Last week, we started with paint stripping.

This week, we removed the cabinets. The cabinets were constructed in place, and made of timber- not plywood. The cheap laminate refacing material stripped off easily, as did the plastic trim.

Before:

After:

Did you notice the larder in the picture above? You can see the vents in the wall still.

We did find one piece of an older flooring with what may have been a really nice pattern at some point.

The existing vinyl flooring pulled up without too much effort, the paper backing remained stuck on the floor. To remove that, we had to scrap by hand. Took all day, but we did it.

When we were done, we saw this:

Then, we went to dinner.

Special thanks to Norm (for the haul-off), Jes (for the loaner tools and radio), Ginny (for sharing great adhesive-scraping skills).

Another lesson learned: When you remove a garbage disposer, get ready for a very stinky mess.

Detail Oriented

Recently I was talking to a friend about the details in our home, so I'm posting pictures of a few details.

This picture is the cabinet next to the sink. We took the awesome laminate door off the cabinet when we moved in. This cabinet puzzles us. No idea what the original cabinet fronts and doors looked like, so no clues there. The slots go completely through the shelf. What do you think it is? Oh- the blue is painter's tape, which I used to hold the shelf liner still, until we can replace the cabinets. I'm tempted to keep this one, though, or find a way to reuse those shelves.

Here is one of a doorknob. We have most of the knobs on the doors, but two have been replaced with a less attractive knob. If you see these knobs for sale anywhere, please let me know!!

Finally, here is the floor. The portion of the house that is above the basement is oak, and the portion that is above the crawlspace (bedrooms and bathroom) is fir. I love the fir. Have a look: