The Nest's Kitchen Demolition 2018

Our 2018 Kitchen Rennovation To The Nest

Our latest rennovations have been to our new old house - The Nest - a two bedroom, one bath bungalow in Mount Dora. It was built circa 1925, at least, we're pretty sure it was. The records say it was built in 1925, but there was this fire, a fire that destroyed all of the records previous to 1925. But I digress...

(14 January 2018)
So Ann decides out of the blue that she wants to take down the cupboard between the door and the window, the one that holds all the drinking glasses and bowls and plates, to see what kind of repairs we'll have to make to the plaster behind it. I'd rather not have to worry about it just yet, especially on my birthday, but she is adamant. She soon finds a place for everything, well, almost everything... And what there isn't room for, well, we didn't need it anyway. I knew that's where this was headed, and I could pretty much tell her what we're looking at without doing anything with the cabinet, but it's done and gone now. And yes, there is some loose plaster, and the holes where the cabinet mounting screws used to be, that will need patched... I think she wants to make sure that not having a cabinet on that wall won't look strange.

So next I'm wondering just what the hell that masonite was that I discovered between the drywall and the old plaster wall, when Nick and I were rewiring that switch and adding the outlet, the wall I was talking about reworking before, that I said I'd get to in a minute, that wall. So back when we were rewiring the house, we needed an outlet on that wall to ensure the six foot coverage the national electric code calls for, and we had to use what's called an "old work" box to add it. It's meant for adding something to old work, that is, work where you don't have access to the studs, like you would for new work where the wall covering has not yet been applied. And yes, there is such a thing as a "new work" box.

The way an old work box works is it has a set of "ears" that deploy out behind the wall covering as you tighten the screws that connect them to the box. Well, it's designed for pretty much no more than about ¾" thick wall covering, and we're sporting more than that thickness with just the plaster and lathe. We can make them work with just the plaster and lathe with some doing, but this just wasn't working. Upon further inspection, I find that not only is there a half inch layer of drywall covering the old plaster and lathe wall, but there's another ¼" of masonite between the two! What in the Hell is going on here?

We want to save the plaster wall if at all possible. I wanted to save what I could in the bathroom, but between the damp rot and the way the previous owners just nailed and screwed in drywall over top of it, it was pretty much a losing battle trying to save anything. The minute you tried, the plaster would just fall out in chunks, and I really wanted Nick to try not to just smash it all off of there, but nothing doing. I'm half expecting the same results here in the kitchen, but wondering if the layer of masonite may save us. Well, the short answer is yes and no, but I'll get to that in a minute.

So armed with the hammer, prybar, and utility knife, I start to remove the layer of drywall, starting with a narrow part at the bottom of the wall behind the door. I didn't need the prybar or the hammer. To my surprise, there is nothing holding the drywall to the rest of the wall behind it, for about four feet up. I take the utility knife and slice across it a few times and remove that much of it at once. Not a nail or screw in it! What is this magic? What is holding the rest of this drywall up? Turns out it's just enough nails and screws to hold it on there. It looks as if they nailed it at the top enough to hold it place and just drove in some screws along the studs, to about four feet off the floor, then stopped. But that wasn't the best part of it all...

What we found beneath the drywall was even better. If you've read about our Wekiva kitchen remodel, you're familiar with the seventies style drop ceiling that we had moved back up to the original rafters. Well, the seventies called, and they want their panelling back! I cannot tell you how absolutely stunned I am to see something in that good of shape, like it just walked out of the seventies. If you have ever seen the colors avacado green, harvest gold, or lemon creme yellow together with chocolate brown, well, welcome to everything from the seventies. This type of panelling was very popular back then. Usually a vinyl print, like wallpaper, except four feet wide streched to cover a four by eight foot sheet of ¼" masonite. There were even plastic "channels" that fit between the panels, usually with a matching vinyl covering, in an attempt to disguise the joints. I say disguise because there is no way you're hiding them! We lived through that, so we've had our fill, but...

Ann says our daughter Courtney will love it and want it once she sees it. I 'm thnking the same thing. So she takes a picture and sends it to her. As we suspected, she wants us to save it for her, surprise, surprise! So I finish removing enough drywall to be able to remove the narrow part behind the door and an entire sheet next to that stripe. The rest will have to wait because we'll need to pull out the refrigerator and move it out of the way to get to that last sheet. It looks like they used a four by ten or four by twelve foot sheet of drywall and cut it to height rather than stack the joints horizontally like I've usually seen them when they're four by eight.

Now to the yes and no part of the masonite saving the plaster. In a way, it did save the plaster, but only the scratch coat in some places because they used construction adhesive on the back of the panelling to adhere it to the plaster in addition to the many ring shanked panelling nails they used to secure it until the adhesive cured. Well, pretty much every place that there was adhesive, the brown coat and the top coat of the plaster came off with the panelling. Thankfully they only used the panelling nails over the studs, so they did very little damage to the surrounding plaster. Oh well, I have just enough daylight left this time of year to clean up the rubble and mess the construction adhesive caused before heading for the showers.

The Drywall Removed To Reveal... The Seventies Called, And They Want Their Panelling Back

(20 January 2018)
If there's anything else about this kitchen that it shares with the 70's style "drop ceiling", it's that it just feels closed in and small. That is something we neeed to do something about. Ann has always hated the cupboards that hang down between the kitchen and the dining room. Not only do we always bump our heads into them any time we try to use the counter beneath, but they're just attached beneath a stretch of wall that used to be supported by something, be it studs or whatever, but no more. They must go. It should have some sort of ledger arrangement to be able to support the weight of the ceiling joists over its more than seven foot unsupported span. But it appears to be just the original 2x4 that was the lower plate of the frame, so it's sagging more than an inch over about a four foot stretch.

When we remove those hanging cabinets. whose contents Ann has emptied into a large gray rubbermaid bin, we find some crumpled up newspaper that was used to fill in the gaps where new plaster or spackle was added. The hokey way the door trim just stopped at those cupboards always bothered me. It meant there used to be another side to the doorway that was removed and now missing, the vital support that stretch of wall and ceiling was now deprived of. But the way that the base cabinet on the other side of the doorway had been cut back so as not to extend the standard 24" from the wall, but rather 21" makes me wonder what the hell used to be there originally?

Those pages of newspaper are from 2 April 1976, so sure enough, the seventies were calling. They were from the entertainment section, now showing: Jaws and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. A real wayback machine trip, so to speak. Looking back through the public records, we manage to trace back to who owned it during that time. He's 93 years old and lives down the road a few miles away in Sorrento. I'm still trying to get up the courage to give him a call and see if he has time to talk about this old house...

I'm still trying to figure out what the original layout of this kitchen was. I can see lines in the plaster on either side of that wall, as well as the darkened rectangles on the bottom of that 2x4 plate where it looks like there used to be at least two studs that went all the way to the floor where the island cabinet now sits, almost like there was never a doorway into the dining room, just a pass through window, or perhaps a pair? I don't know and it's driving me nuts! That 2x4 looks like one of the original pine studs, thick with that pitch and turpentine smell when drilled into...

Come to think of it, I haven't tried that yet to see if it is indeed the original. If so, then why did that plate exist at all? There had to be an opening, or openings, at least that wide across there originally for it to have been framed in that manner. Dunno. And probably never will. That doesn't stop me from moving on to removing the remaining drywall and panelling on the far wall. It goes a lot quicker this time, so I continue on to removing the panels meant to block off the old doorway into the hall. This time it was done by the folks we bought the house from, at least, if you believe their story that they refinished the wood floors themselves, because beneath the new studs was refinished flooring.

So follow on to my birthday present of the '70s calling, I get to work removing the remaining drywall and panelling trapped beneath it. All this creates a huge dusty, dirty, gritty mess through the house. A huge mess we didn't think ahead enough to prepare for. Everything, and I mean everything needs cleaned! The coffee pot, the stove, the refigerator, everything the wasn't covered... So basically everything. While on the one hand it's nice to have that hanging cabinet out to the curb and the rest of the drywall and the panelling off, on the other it's sucking bad how much cleanup is needed afterward. Extra cleaning that could have been avoided with a few strategically placed dropcloths.

Unfortunately, that last panel was really stuck to the plaster and pulled off a lot more of it than the first pieces had. That really made most of the mess. Fortunately, it's just the top coat and not all of the plaster like in the bathroom. Still, there's quite a bit of repair needed to keep the original plaster wall. I would rather take the time to repair it than to totally remove it, down to the studs and replace it with drywall, and still have to repair the remaining plaster walls anyway. Besides, I'm still going to have to hang drywall to close off that doorway into the hall...

(27 January 2018)
With the cabinets already on order, and supposed to be delivered this coming Friday, 2 February, we really need to get moving on getting that plaster fixed. Easier said than done this weekend... Without getting into all the he said, she said details, this weekend was a wash for me as far as getting anything done on the kitchen. Let's just say that Ann and Nick had other plans, and I wasn't included. They managed to replace the 4' fence with a 6' board on board fence today, and did not want my help doing so. Too bad I couldn't let them know everything I need for working on the plaster is still over at Nick's house.

(28 January 2018)
Today it's a week past the date the appliance store should have called to schedule delivery of the replacements and still we've heard nothing about the appliances on back order. Guess we'll have to call them. Other than that, more of the same, except now I'll need to make another huge, dirty, gritty mess to prepare the wall for plaster repair, and Ann is too sore and tired from putting up the fence yesterday to go to all that trouble. And she lets me know about it in no uncertain terms. That's okay though, I really didn't want to start the demolition Sunday anyway. Next weekend for sure...

The Cabinets Removed To Reveal... The Plaster Is In Bad Shape Everywhere

(3 February 2018 - Happy Birthday Krystal!)
Much more demolition on the kitchen this weekend. Ann wants to remove the rest of the cabinets over and around the stove. So off we go, Ann requesting boxes from me and grabbing the empty bin from the front porch to store the contents of the cupboards. Ann removes everything from the wall cupboards over the stove, and with that done, one by one we remove them. The original plan is to just stand those old cupboards on the floor in the living room in front of the fireplace and just put everything back in, but once we see how filthy and disugsting they are, straight to the curb they go by unanimous decision. We remove the drawers from the base cabinets and Ann stacks the pots and pans from one in the spare bin and the dog food from the other by the cupboard in the dining room. Again, straight to the curb they go.

So now the contents are stacked in boxes and bins in the living room, the drawers from the base cabinets with the silverware and cooking utensils sitting on the front porch. Not exactly to plan, but done none-the-less. I almost forgot to mention the range hood removal. Both Nick and I are having trouble getting those damned pin base, twist lock light bulbs out of the sockets. Nick isn't sure if we need to take out more than the four screws he's already removed, so I get the installation guide booklet out of the file cabinet. Sure enough, there are four more screws and off comes the bottom cover, to reveal the mounting screws and wiring that needs disconnected. Nick gets that while I loosen the mounting screws and off the rest of it comes. Know anyone that needs a slightly used white range hood?

The cabinet removal reveals more plaster in need of repair and possibly the original linoleum, but only under one of the base cabinets. Under the other the original floor boards have been painted the bright lemon yellow that the walls were at one point. I need to get busy with repairing the plaster, but Ann is once again concerned about lead paint. She and Nick picked up a test kit, so I tested for lead, following the directions on the back. Some of the original white paint may have lead in it, but as Nick gave me the third degree on how I tested after reading the enclosed pamphlet, I'm wondering if I fucked it up? Dunno... And at this point, don't fucking care, and told Nick it was a good thing it came with two testers so he could retest it just to make sure.

I'm not tryng to be flippant about it, but from what I've read, the mitigation technique is to spray the item with water prior to removal to avoid the dust, then bag and dispose of in the trash. Again, don't care, and apparently neither did Nick since he didn't bother to retest. While spraying the plaster with water will be messy, it may reduce the amount of dust stirred up, but it's doubtful since there is no way the water is going to penetrate all the way to the base coat. Thinking we'll skip that step regardless. So while we're stirring up dust, I remove the remaining trim around the doorway into the dining room and the baseboard in hall. I should have removed the bit of baseboard left in the dining room, but for now it can wait.

Cabinets and appliances should be here in the next week or two, but we still need to call. While Ann was surprised that they didn't deliver the cabinets yesterday per the original order schedule, I knew that we would have heard from them before now if nothing was wrong. Sure enough, once Ann talks with someone, she finds out somehow the revised order got put back onto that bogus phone number we were assured had been removed from our account. I can't tell you how many times we've heard that they've fixed it, only to be haunted by it over and over again. So here we go again, they will call us at the phone number sent in an email... Yeah, right. Ann has to go back to Lowe's a second time on Wednesday to sit with the guy while he calls the cabinet company a second time...

Again, she is assured they will call to schedule the delivery and if she hasn't heard anything by Monday... As she is walking out of the store, her phone rings and it's the delivery company... She schedules it for Friday, and even after warning them that we live across from the high school and they need to avoid 2:00 - 3:00PM because of parent pickup, they tell her sometime between 2:30 and 6:30PM. Like, WTF did I just say? But it get's better... Stay tuned for the next installment!