Kitchen Reno: Day 28

It's 28 days later and the kitchen reno is in full swing!

How is it going? Well, let's just say when you buy a century home you get century old problems. Basically, we're undoing 100 years of bad decisions and amateur building. When we tore down our walls and ceiling (back around day 5) the contractor found that the beams (the pieces of wood that hold up the ceiling) were much too far apart. This is why the floor on our second floor is a bit bouncy (it's literally not supported by anything in a few places). To fix all this our contractor has installed temporary walls throughout the kitchen until everything is shored up with additional beams and joists.

Temporary walls to hold up the ceiling

  Other pleasant surprises:

• At one point there was a window looking out to the backyard. The owners got sick of it and decided to build a wall. But instead of taking out the window they just covered it up (glass pane and all)! Why?!
• One wall was randomly built with cement blocks.
• Another interior wall, which we've torn down, was built with no supporting beams. Horizontal planks were supporting the ceiling in that area. Super dangerous!
• And of course there is asbestos paper here and there which we've been pulling out. 

This photo was actually taken back on Day 3 but shows the hidden window we found in the wall!

We're about a month behind schedule and my original optimistic estimate of a 2-month project is looking like 3-months right now.

The good news is that I see the light at the end of the tunnel of the make-sure-the-ceiling-doesn't-collapse-stage.  Once the ceiling is fully supported we can take out all these temporary walls and start moving to the install-new-tiles-and-build-cabinets-and-other-stuff-we-can-see-stage.

We've filled and trucked away two dumpsters worth of wall junk (plaster, etc.). Now our driveway is a workshop for the contractor.

Fingers crossed!