Home Remodeling Fun

I have been working on a kitchen remodel for about two weeks now. The experience has been enlightening. So far, I have completed the demolition of an entire wall (I combined two rooms to make one large kitchen), removed the plaster and lath board from every wall and the ceiling (the room is now 11′ x 23′ x 9′ tall), installed and wired recessed lighting (6 cans) and removed all of the flooring. It has taken all of my spare time on the past few weekends and most evenings throughout the week.

So far my hands hurt, my back hurts, every muscle in my upper body aches and I have inhaled enough plaster dust to make a coal miner shutter. The entire experience has been difficult on the whole family. Try raising 3 kids aged 6 and under while not having a fully functioning kitchen. The mess is beyond anything I imagined. There is plaster dust throughout the entire house-including the bedrooms upstairs! I have done everything I can to prevent the dust from escaping to the rest of the house but to no avail.

You may read this and assume that I am miserable and wish that I had never taken on this gargantuan task. But you would be wrong. Oh so wrong. This has been a major learning experience for me. I have had to pull almost every favor I have in reserve for the next several years, but I have enjoyed every step of the process. There is something strangely rewarding about knocking down a wall. Swinging a sledge hammer releases some primal hormones buried deep in the brain and makes you feel like you have accomplished something no man has ever done.

So here I am two weeks into a project that is supposed to last 6-8 weeks and I haven’t stalled yet. I am looking forward to every little step ahead of me. I have to finish wiring the entire kitchen. I have to hang drywall on every wall and ceiling (and then do all the fun mudding and taping). Then we have to paint the walls and ceiling. I have to install sub-flooring and then the floor itself (we chose to go with cork flooring), I have to paint and install the new cupboards (yes, we are finishing our cupboards all by ourself for a substantial savings over the finished products you see in Home Depot). Each task is a lesson in life. A new fact stored in my brain that isn’t a song lyric or an obscure movie quote. A skill learned (maybe not perfected, but learned still).

How much does the average kitchen remodel cost? Think about one with layout changes, plumbing moved, gas lines re-routed, walls removed, three layers of floor ripped up, plaster demo and the subsequent new drywall installed, new lighting throughout, new cupboards, new french doors installed…and then think about the contractor bill that would ensue. I imaging that $10,000 would be a low number for this job. Then think about the fact that by utilizing knowledgeable family and friends, and doing all of the labor myself (again utilizing family and friends) I am going to do this all for about $2,000! That sum even includes the purchase price of several new tools and dumpster rental. More people need to buckle down and do this stuff for themselves. Or maybe, I need to start doing it for a living since they won’t.

Here is the before photo looking from the entry door.

Here I am removing the wall with the help of my FIL.

This is what the kitchen looks like now.  The dog is not a permanent fixture in the room.