The Beginning of the Kitchen Saga (I Assume)

Well, the kitchen is started. And I think I can safely assume it's going to be a saga. Whose kitchen isn't a saga?

Troy and Isaac dismantled the main support beam the other day. There used to be an exterior wall there. At some point, someone took out the wall and bumped out the kitchen onto a porch. I am assuming that's when they put this support beam in.

We don't know when someone nailed on some extra boards to the side to "help" the beam do its job. But the boards didn't span the length, and in fact the interior one turned out to be two shorter pieces nailed to the beam. In short, they did not help the beam but just added more weight to it.

I don't know if you can see in the picture, but it sags quite badly in the middle. And then, as if there needed to be more, the north end (far end in the picture) was not supported by anything. It's hanging off the second floor. That's not how it supposed to work. So there will be some structural improvements to the kitchen.

And we are now thinking we are going to have a beam as part of the look of the ceiling. We don't want to bring the entire ceiling down low enough to hide the beam, so we'll cover it with some nice looking wood and make it a feature. The ceiling to the west of it, over the porch, will probably be a little lower and drywall. The ceiling to the east will be a little higher and suspended.

Then yesterday, more "real" work began. I came home to this:

You can see they are taking apart the exterior wall. That will be the first concern. But the cabinets are next. They'll be moving to the shop to be filled with soap-making supplies, I believe.

When I came home and walked upstairs to say hi to Isaac, he apologized for the mess in the kitchen. They tore out so much he wasn't able to clean it all up by the end of his "work day." When I walked back into the kitchen I noticed this:

...for the first time! When I walked through it on my way upstairs, I didn't even see it. I was focused on the walls and work being done. And I'm pretty good with SEP fields. (That's Someone Else's Problem--read Douglas Adams.) And Isaac apparently thought a mess in the kitchen was a much bigger deal (and more uncommon) than I did. (Bless his heart.)

So who knows how long the kitchen will be out of commission. I'm scared to guess because I know it's always at least twice as long as you think. Meanwhile we'll be setting up in the dining room. We ate our first meal there last night:

And Troy noted that it was the first time ever, actually, that we ate in our dining room. (We had spaghetti in case that's significant.)

We'll be setting up some shelves for the food and dishes that are in the kitchen. The dishwasher and fridge are already in a different room (where they've always been); we have a microwave; a sink in the bathroom off the kitchen; and Troy just bought a hot plate to replace the stove. (Plus there's the barbecue and crockpot for other meals.) We're going to try leaving the stove in for as long as possible, though. It's not on an outside wall so it may not be too much in the way, and it's sitting where the fridge will go so no cabinets need to be installed there. We'll see.

And that's life at Maple Leaf Gardens. Grab your crowbars, boys; we're going in!