If you are considering living through a remodel, you should really take the time to mentally prepare yourself. You need to be ready to accept that, not only will you not have all your stuff, but even the stuff you do have around will never be readily accessible. You need to accept that NOTHING will EVER be clean. Not until it's totally finished. You will be tripping over wires and climbing over piles of (fill in the blank..drywall, tile, supplies, etc...). You will most assuredly get dirty...and you will be tired. Another bonus- if you are re-doing your kitchen, you may even go through some time where cooking can only be done outside- via the grill, a camp stove, or a firepit. And the only place to sit and eat your food will either be outside or on your bed. Since we all know that food isn't allowed in bed- guess what? It's campfire meals! Every day!! Trust me on this, if you are a person who has never enjoyed camping or "roughing it", go ahead and book an extended stay right now, because living through a remodel is NOT for you.
Even though a part of me is embarrassed to show you these pictures- I think you need to understand what this is really like... so, take, for instance, the view from the front door to the kitchen/dining room/living room. Don't you just LOVE our garbage bag wall? It was actually incredible at keeping some of the dust/dirt off of our living room furniture.
It gets better... Welcome to the Dining Room!
It's not pretty, but that's reality, people.While all of this has absolutely been exhausting, it has also been an amazing experience. Tim has taught me about plumbing and electrical and drywall and construction- to the point that I KNOW I know more about some of this stuff than some of the employees at the Depot. And, without stepping foot in a gym for ...ahem..a long time, I am stronger than I have ever been. I can accomplish things now that I would have never thought possible 6 months ago. Not to mention that many people think of living through a remodel as one of those things that can "break" a marriage. I know it's only been a little over 2 months, but Tim and I haven't fought once. If anything, I think that this is making us a stronger, better team. I think that maybe, being thankful for these things has helped us to get through all of the not-so-great parts I noted above. Laughter and silliness helps too.
So, with all of that being said, I would like to tell you about the HARDEST thing we have done so far. Framing.
Since we took out the walls surrounding the old kitchen, we had to replace some beams so that the ceiling wouldn't collapse (pretty important). The solution was to install two large header beams- both beams are 10.5" X 3.5" and one was almost 10 feet, the other almost 14. I came home from work on Wednesday of this week to see that Tim had managed, through what I can only assume was black magic, to get the smaller beam in place on his own.
The big one was there waiting for me. Tim says that the beam weighed about 200-250 lbs- but I am pretty sure it was closer to at least 400lbs. Getting the beam in place involved us both holding this beam above our heads and, finally, balancing it on the top of the 6ft. ladder. When we got one side of the beam maneuvered into place, we found that we could simply not get the other side up. The reason being, due to a poorly done remodel in the past, the ceiling had not been properly supported and was drooping. Every time we moved the beam, you could see the ceiling moving up and down with it. At one point, Tim was holding up one end while I frantically ran around him emergency-framing up a "wall" to rest the beam on while we formulated a plan. This was with the big nail gun, which I only used for the first time a few weeks ago, and was now running up and down step ladders with while holding up framing beams. Like I said- stronger. Eventually, Tim had a brilliant idea and grabbed a bottle jack out of the garage. We ended up putting a stud on top of the jack and using it to lift the middle of the beam up. It got the beam to the point that it close, but still not totally into place. Then, I got to beat the beam repeatedly with the BMFH (all over my head), while Tim used the Trojan to try and coax it into place. FYI, the Trojan is a wall pulling lever thingy. (Technical terms). There were many other approaches that didn't work so well.
Once the beam was up, we were finally able to remove all the old kitchen framing that used to be the walls, refrigerator cubby and pantry. You can also see that we have since pulled down the ceiling in the kitchen, since we realized it would be easier to start from scratch than to re-texture what was there.
This was, hands down, the most exhausing, difficult thing we have done so far- but the sense of achievement when that beam finally lined up correctly was amazing. Another way to put it- I am not much of a drinker, but when we finished this, the almost involuntary words out of my mouth were " I need a beer."
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