New Cabinets!

The cabinets are in... mostly.... sort of. Here's what happened in the last 2 days.

The counter tops finally come off Tuesday morning. Monday Vet2Be and Taco spent 3 hours working on taking cabinets apart and trying to get to the countertop from underneath.

Hubby came home from work early on Tuesday to help take out the counter top and the rest of the cabinets. He's been out of town for more than a week, and he gets to come home to this mess. Good thing he has a good attitude!

The original vinyl flooring under the cabinets. Really? Did anyone really ever like that flooring?

Yay! Cabinets are all out! A few of them had to come out in pieces. The kitchen had already been remodeled once with the existing cabinetry. Using them again, even in a garage, isn't an option.

This is what the wall looked like where I had to take off original wall paper. The builder (back in 1978 or so) decided it wasn't necessary to prime the walls before putting up textured wall paper.

Can I just say I LOVE vinyl wall patch!? That stuff is awesome! First I primed the wall twice to seal the cardboard. I used Zissner 1•2•3 Primer. Love that stuff, too. Then I patched the ripped drywall with Ace brand Vinyl Patch. It dried in about an hour (better than 24 hours for the regular drywall patch) so I could sand and fix any spots I missed. This corner had to be done before the upper cabinet was installed.

Here's a little paint tray trick. I put the paint tray inside a garbage bag. We don't have a sink to clean up well, so using a garbage bag let me paint the wall, then dump the paint back into the can and throw away the bag. Vet2Be kindly volunteered to clean up the paint :)

Yucky brown paint! This was another project that got done on Wednesday. All 3 suspended seating posts were painted black using Rustoleum oil based paint.

Posts painted, wall  by the stairs painted where the cabinets will go. We're almost ready for the cabinets.

The other part of the kitchen on Wednesday night. Hubby's job was to lay cement board in all the spots where there was no tile on the floor. We knew that would make it easier for the installer.

This wall behind the fridge had wall paper boarder near the ceiling (you can see some of it on the left side of the photo). Wednesday night found me scraping it off with a single edge razor blade. Then using wall paper stripper to take the wall paper backing off.

There is stuff from the kitchen piled everywhere!

Yay! Thursday morning and the boxes are here!

Thursday night after the installer was as close to finished as he could get.

One of the cabinets was the wrong size. The narrow cabinet that looks 'lonely' and not installed in the photo will actually be on the left side of the bar facing in towards the center of the kitchen, not where it is now. The 24" cabinet that is supposed to be in the spot where the narrow cabinet is sitting, didn't fit properly. The doors wouldn't open, so the installer didn't finish.

This is what it looks like tonight.

And I'm actually thinking that I'd like to get rid of the "U" shaped kitchen and go with an "L" shaped kitchen.

Hubby thinks that is a great idea. Even if it means a bunch of work for him to remove the step and fill in the floor with tile. He volunteered... I told him if he was willing to do the work, I'd love it. I didn't want to add more work to his already busy schedule.

He thinks with Vet2Be and Son1's help they can do it this weekend.

I'll be calling the cabinet company tomorrow and asking them about updating the plans. It will actually cost them less money (because they won't have to re-order the cabinet) and less work because the installer won't have as much to install.

I'll post photos of the pantry tomorrow.

My hands are soooo tired tonight!