Flip House 1...Part 3

Chapter 3....The Kitchen Demo Hi everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful week. Mike and I went to our next door neighbors house last night for a small party and to watch the Boat Parade that comes through our canals during the Holidays. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful night. Mike had also been talking to a young man who wants to get into flipping. Mike explained how tough it is and how in this time there are just too many unknowns. It's not as easy as some people think. Believe me it's not like those TV shows, lol. Anyway, we gave him our Realtors name and number because she is 1. very good and 2. very upfront. Turns out they talked and our Realtor is trying to talk him out of flipping. She doesn't think he has enough experience and she doesn't want to see him lose his shirt. I thought that was pretty darn ethical. Way to go lady. She is not allowed to see this site or our house until it is complete. We want to surprise her. OK, enough babbling. It's time for the next chapter of our story. This time we will be tearing out the kitchen and what a job it was. The kitchen is in the center of the house so it is a main focal point and then the water view which is just beyond the kitchen. Our original kitchen had a wall we want to remove. The reason we are removing this wall is because it blocks the water view when you enter the house. Mike is very strict about having a water view when you walk in the front door. It's a must for us. Because after all if you are buying in this neighborhood you are buying it for the water. Here are a couple of original pictures. That one has the old lumadome in the middle. We will take this out to make the kitchen bigger. In this one you can see the cabinets that hang down from the ceiling. They block the water view. We start our demo by taking off the cabinet doors. Taking out the cabinets on the refrigerator wall which will also be removed. Ah, Mike's favorite. It's show time. Here I am taking off more doors. Mike being gentle and unscrewing doors. Now that the door fronts are off it's time to get the cabinets out. We start working on the section of cabinets that block the water view. The top ones are just about down and now we can start on the lower cabinets. It's time to break out another tool. Woo hoo. Mike is going to use the reciprocating saw or saws all to cut through the counter top so we can get it apart. And the sink is out. My turn. Since we need the refrigerator we move that into the living room. We already took the dishwasher out to the garage. Next is the oven. We manage to get all the cabinets into the garage. We are starting to get one heck of a pile out there, lol. Now it's time to take the wall out. Mike starts with his sledgehammer. Oh yuck, it's plaster. That means the walls are sheetrock and "then" they are covered with plaster which makes them really hard to break through. It's going to be a long and messy job. But the clean up girl is here. I fill up about 20 commercial garbage bags with plaster, sheetrock, and dust. Mike is through to the other side. We are done for the day. We got the wall out and everything cleaned up. We are open to the front of the house. And open to the back. Not too bad for one day of work. The next day is Sunday and we took the day off to do a little homework. We went to some Open Houses and talked with some Realtors about what is going on. We know a lot of the Realtor's here but it's always good to catch up. We have been watching this neighborhood for many years and I have a book that I write down every house that has been listed since 2003. There have been many many changes over the years. This time we have to be better than what is out there. OK, it's Monday. Fun time and socializing is over. Time too take the soffit out. Mike starts off by taking the ceiling fan out. Next it's the lumadome and the lights. We now have to figure out the best plan of attack. It looks like we should start at the top front corner and work our way through. Mike breaks through the plaster just opening things up. Next he has to cut out some 2x4's so we can continue. Then he uses the sledgehammer. It looks like that will be the process. Break it open a little, cut the 2x4's with the saws all, and then use the sledge to yank things down. There is blown in insulation in this house which makes a huge mess during demo. It's like it is snowing. At least it's very clean insulation. The last house we did had lots of mice droppings, yuck!! The soffit mess and it seems like I just can't keep up on the cleaning. Mike making more of a mess for me. I think he enjoys this, lol. There is insulation and plaster everywhere. We use a broom and make sure all of the furring strips in the ceiling are free of any debris. I must say the attic looks like it is in really good shape. The ducting also looks pretty new. Mike is on the final section in the ceiling. After a lot of banging and a lot of garbage bags the soffit is down and everything is clean.(at least until Mike gets the sledgehammer again) And Well since we don't have a kitchen I am using the master bath as my kitchen. I love to cook and I know I will be so excited to get back to a real kitchen. Here is my FL kitchen. Our living quarters for the next few months. And Well that's all for this week. Once we get everything apart we can start putting it all back together again. Lisa