Cleaning House

It's that time of year when the urge to clean house, get organized and make it all spit shine for the summer comes upon me. I take my house keeping very seriously and so deep spring cleaning is no exception. The kitchen is always the biggest project with the cupboards, drawers, appliances, floors, windows, wainscoting and ceiling to wipe down and degrease.


I may have gone a little overboard this time . . .






Do you dig my pasty white legs and super cool safety glasses? I know, extra hotness going on.

The real event of the weekend is the start of our kitchen remodel. I cannot even begin to express my excitement over this project. When we bought our house the kitchen was THE nicest room in the place (so sad) since it had been updated 15 years prior while the rest of the house remained stuck in 1978. Over the past 8 years we have done major renovations to our home but the kitchen has gone untouched, until Friday.

I am slightly second guessing the new cabinetry since I didn't realize, until recently, how popular my yellow oak cabinets were until word got around of our pending kitchen redo. I got a call from a friend (Angela B) who wanted to know what we were going to do with our old cabinets. I hadn't really thought much beyond the city dump so I was surprised when she said she would be interested in them and how much did we want for them. Hmmm, how about you come and help uninstall them and you can have them sound? Following this agreement (she and amazing hubby (AH) showed up the next day to make sure they would fit for their project) I was contacted by several other people about "taking the cabinets off our hands" - who knew cheap oak cabinetry is all the rage right now.

So Friday Angela B. and AH showed up and we got the appliances, sink, counters and cabinetry all out within a few mere hours. Okay really her AH did 90% of the work, and was NICE about it, but I chipped in where I could.

Pre-Demo (first time kitchen has been this clean in 8 years!)








This demo team is unstoppable!





Saturday - Still in Demo Mode

It may appear that I am shoveling up the mess but in reality I am the one using the flat tip shovel to remove the tile floor (and I have the blisters on my hands to prove it). By the time I called it quits for the day I had taken up half the tile using the shovel, crowbar with hammer (for those extra tough tiles) and the trusty sledge hammer (for the ones that refused to come up using the other two methods).





At days end all the wainscoting was down and ready to be picked up (thanks to FreeCycle!!!) and I had half the floor up.

Coming up next, removing more tile, getting the plywood off the floor and the carpet up from the entryway (and I think the tile there too but I haven't told DH that part yet - but it doesn't match my new floor so it has to go!).