The kitchen was probably the reason we got a such a deal on
our house. If you consider we already have a pink bathroom, mismatched wood
floors upstairs compared to down, a
basement that is semi finished, and the endless list of other projects needed
on this house i just don't think many people had the courage to pull the
trigger after seeing the green monster.
Pictures will probably be much better than my description, but this old
school kitchen was a mess.
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| If you want more of the original green monster see the "before picture" blog entry. |
First entering the kitchen you notice the lovely breakfast
bar. Its that particle board with the laminate wood finish. Its worn on the
surface and seems to be propped up by some hack-job wooden brace. The entire
thing wobbles when you put pressure on it, and its overall sloping in towards
the room. It has a lovely side-kick
corner caddy shelf that is secured to the wall with massive dark wooden
supports. As you move around the kitchen
you can't miss the dark brown cabinets that have a somewhat disgusting overly
used and not always cleaned type of look. There is visible grease stains around
all the places your hands would go to get things out of the
cupboards. There is a massive microwave that sits in the middle of the kitchen
above the stove. This thing easily is from the 70's. If you look up you will
find that the previous owners were once again quite keen on the plastic,
see-through, squareish pattern drop ceiling. Even better above the drop ceiling
is three incandescent tube lights that are fully visible without any decorative
covering(flickering included). There's also that push board stuff that you can
use thumb tacks with. This sweet piece of engineering isn't just screwed into
the wall though. The entire thing is glued solid right to the plaster. To top
it all off the entire room is painted in a dark green color. Oh but don't worry! Its not just the walls
that are green, these guys loved this color so much they said, heck let's take
it to the baseboards, basement and back yard doors and their frames! And so the
green monster was born.
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| Green green everywhere! |
The budget for this kitchen is small, and we are certainly
not thinking of demoing everything and putting in a new kitchen at this time.
That dream kitchen will have to wait many a year from now to kick off. For now
we need to make the best with what we have, and hopefully make this thing into
a comfortable and useable space. I very much enjoy cooking, and I fully believe
having a nice place to do it in makes the food that much better. I figure I can get allot done without spending
too much money as most of what lies ahead is mostly physical labor. At this time we are still a few weeks away
from moving in all of our stuff from the apartment so I have to get down and
dirty and do so as quickly as possible.
I have an excitement as I prepare to start my minor demo.
I've done similar type of destruction before at the instruction of my mother, back when i was a youngin. I'm
genuinely excited! The first step
is taking a hammer and screw gun to the breakfast bar and shelf. Most of this comes off easy, but I have to
get the vise-grips (my favorite tool) to pull out the wall anchors used to hold
the small shelf in place. Within 30 minutes I'm already off to the next
task. I choose to go after push pin
board on the wall next. I pull out my new chisel and hammer and get to work.
The next several hours to follow are a joke. This stuff is seriously glued on
and any hope that "once I get it started" it would come off quickly are
completely extinguished. The work is so boring and slow-going that I finish
about half of it, and decide its time for blood.
As carefully as possible I start ripping ceiling tiles down.
The plastic tiles shatter and give off a loud crack as they break. Its quite
satisfying as I unleash the power of destruction all up on this kitchen! The
ceiling comes down mostly easy. I'm again shocked at the craftsmanship that was
used in the house. I have to constantly
switch between the screw gun with flat and star shaped tips, hammer, putty
knife, and vice-grips to get down what seemed like a combination of over dozen
different screws and nails. For a drop ceiling that weighs in about 30 pounds
total it's another head shaker. Later I submit to cork boards authority and
mind numbingly chisel it the full way off.
The mess is quickly disposed of, but now we have several
hundred holes in the walls from the drop ceiling coming down, the cork board being carved off the wall, and
the breakfast bar being disposed of. Not
only that but the ceiling has some serious chipping going on unevenness going
on. It appears there have been about 3 or 4 layers of paint put on in here and
its peeling in various areas. I bust out a jug of putty and get to work filling
the holes. The walls are easy enough to fill in, but the ceiling is a pain the ass
or really my back. Where does pain in the ass come from? Really I can't remember my actual butt hurting
during any of my projects. In fact that sweet piece of meat is actually the
only comfortable part of my body after finishing a project.
While the putty dries I can't just wait around doing
nothing. Those disgusting cupboards seriously need a hand up or hand out or
well they need my hands so I'm going to give it to umm..
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| Yes yes.. laugh all you want. Thats my I'm tired as **** face and happy im done for the night. |
