Welcome to our nightmare.....soon to become dream kitchen.

So we are in the process as you know of remodeling our kitchen. So instead of our Monday date, I went to work(cook) and Brian stayed home and ripped out our surprise chimney. I know the jealous bug is starting to nip you again;) But as a promise to document the process I thought I would document the nightmare. I must preface the following pictures with some fine print....we are no longer eating in our house and I am no longer making anymore than cold cereal and school lunches in our house. These decisions have been made in hopes to avoid anyone being poisoned in this process:)

I must warn you the picture that follow are graphic!

First up is what we like to call our surprise....a chimney hidden in the existing cabinets. Not the kind of surprise we would describe as positive or exciting though. More terrifying and exhausting.
So Brian spent most of his day removing it.

How I remember life before.

The Surprise....nothing ever goes as expected in this beautiful old house. Thankful for the millionth time that my husband is handy and capable!

After removal.

The empty chimney shaft. And just to clarify he had to remove bricks from the kitchen all the way up to the rooftop. Which included cutting holes in other walls. Damaging and breaking things, cuts and bruises and much more. But now its done. He texted me a picture of the chimney shaft this afternoon with the sunlight coming through and told me he had found the light at the end of the tunnel:)

Now on to the other side. This wall was an original wall to the original house so all of the wood is original. It is pretty interesting to rip things out in this house because we always find layers of floor, wallpaper, paint etc. we try and leave as much as possible so others behind us can find the same types of reminders of kitchens past. This 105yr old house holds a lot of history.


And my pantry, I mean dining room, filled with everything my cabinets used to hold, I also have to ginormous rubbermaids. The scary thing is my lower cabinets are still full to the gills with stuff and I need to find room for it somewhere, I think a few more bins will do the trick.

So now you are caught up. I will keep you posted we are 7 days out from the new cabinets coming in and we still have electrical work, a new wall to built, ducting etc. to be done. Please pray for my amazing hubby and all of our various helpers, they are working hard all the time to make this deadline!! I am a lucky woman, even when I am surrounded by chimney soot on every surface of my home:)