Kitchen Remodel - Part 5

So last we left you in the remodel process, the floors and counters were replaced, the cabinets had been sanded and painted, and two walls had some blue paint on them. We still had a long list of things to do. The cabinet doors had to be painted and re-hung, but incessant rain and wind were inhibiting our ability to paint them outside. We were still in search of a microwave hood combination to go above the stove. That didn't happen, not enough clearance, so now we have a simple range hood that is STILL waiting to be installed. We also had wallpaper to remove, more painting to do, and lots of molding to install.

So after way too many attempts at painting the doors, we finally got them done enough to re-hang. I've ended up doing touch-ups on each door a few times until I saw all the bad spots in different lighting. They are now done, re-hung, and looking pretty good.

So on to removing all the wallpaper. Have I mentioned how much I HATE removing wallpaper? Well M's heard it enough times that she removed it all herself.

Then after all the wallpaper was removed, she primed the walls.









But don't worry, I wasn't sitting idly by while she worked. I was removing the hideous and mostly non-working florescent lights in the kitchen. We had this little octagonal one that never did work, so one end of our kitchen was always dark. We would compensate for the lack of light by turning on the bathroom and dining room lights to brighten that end of the kitchen.

There is darkness no more! The old light came out without any trouble and the new one went in, all in a matter of about 10 minutes! This is a piece of cake! . . . . You know I had to have spoken too soon, right?

The next light fixture to remove was the really long, rectangular one. Okay, so it was much bigger and would need a couple of people to remove it, no problem. Um, that was before we discovered the guy put it up with whatever screws he had around the house, so we had Phillips head, we had flathead and we had chewed out screws that he couldn't get in tight enough, but that were keeping the light fixture from coming down. Jr. had to use his muscle to get quite a few of the screws out. There was nothing we could do to get the chewed out screw, so a neighbor came over with his vice-grips and after much sweating and grumbling, finally got it out. So all the screws were out, the bulbs were out, the inner panel was out and still the fixture would not come down. What the heck?

So it turned out that the former homeowner who installed the light, didn't want to be bothered with molly bolts and brackets in the drywall ceiling, so he just decided to glue the frame to the ceiling. We tried cutting around the frame and the glue, and it just wasn't coming off. Finally, with brute force, we just pulled the bugger off the ceiling and decided to deal with whatever damage resulted. Here I am beginning the process of patching holes in the drywall and re-plastering the ceiling.

So we eventually got the new lights installed, but I still have a ceiling to fix.








We finally made it to the point where we could begin putting paint on the other walls.














So the paint is up. It's looking very close to finished, but it's not. We still have to install the cabinets to the ceiling. That will be done in July when M's brother comes for a visit. The hood for the range still needs to be installed. We can't finish the wall in that corner until the hood is done because we don't know where the wiring needs to go yet. The ceiling needs to be sanded and re-painted again to help the patched area blend in with the rest of the ceiling, and shoe molding and trim molding still needs to be installed.