Day one finally came! Kai and Steve from Moss have been our contractors on site every day, and they've been awesome. So they got started removing cabinets, and they came down so fast! It wasn't like the home improvement shows where everyone takes a sledgehammer and goes to town, splintering wood off in every direction - he just unscrewed them and took them down!
So while they were working, I went into the office...and at about 2:30pm, M called...and said we had an issue and I needed to come home....
They really had worked fast!
So the original plan called for the full wall to come out, and be rebuilt back at the edge of the door in the mudroom, to keep the mudroom space but give us at least a foot extra in the kitchen by removing the pantry. See the corner in the photo below? None of the 10 or so contractors we had come look at the space noticed this...that's the exterior of the house, and we can't go back any more...
So...options. Ok, one option was to push that door out, and frame it up where the step is to make the exterior straight...that was going to come with a $5700 price tag. Great, so...option b?
Option B was to frame out that corner, make it look more intentional in the kitchen, and rearrange the layout of the kitchen. Luckily, since we did decide to go with Ikea cabinets, we could just load up the car that weekend, drive to Woodbridge, return them and buy new ones for the new layout.
Cady was not pleased that she was blocked from where all of the action was.
So with plan b in place, the work continued and they started framing the wall and working on electrical. That took a bit longer than expected - with the removal of several walls that housed lights, switches, the security panel, and phone jack, there was a lot of rearranging that needed to be done. Plus, they had to bring the plugs up to code.
We also decided to close in the side window. It was an odd shape compared to the others in the room, and looked right into our neighbors' back yards. Especially in the winter with the leaves gone, it was a little too close for comfort. Plus this way we can run cabinets along that whole wall.
We've had lots of questions from friends about this. During the planning process, we really thought a lot about this, asked a few realtor friends, and other designers. We also hung a thick blanket up over the window, taping the sides down to really see how it would change the light in the room. Yes, it will be darker, but there are still 2 large windows in the space that let in lots of natural light.
Once we passed the county electrical inspection, they could start closing the walls up and drywalling!
Next up comes hardwood and cabinet installation!
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