Kitchen/Dining Room Renovation - Part 1

Although I had removed the contents from some of the cabinets before my wife and daughters left for the Philippines on Thursday, I count today as the official start of the renovation since I actually started demolition today. Originally the demolition was to consist of removing a couple of the cabinets my wife wanted removed, removing some UGLY paneling from the seventies or eighties in the dining room and removing some weird wood accent piece from above the stove.

Here is the "before" picture:

Anyone who has ever seen the television show "Renovation Realities" KNOWS this changed once I got started.

The cabinets to be removed actually came down without much problem even though I am working by myself. The melamine back splash (at least that's what I think it is) was more difficult but the melamine came off and left the glue on the wall without tearing the drywall. Some sanding should take care of that without too much difficulty. Wow, this was off to a rocking start!

Here is how it looked after the cabinets were removed:

Since the melamine was glued on and since I know the previous owner's modus operandi, I was afraid the paneling might have been glued on to the dining room wall as well so I decided to try to remove a piece and see. It was only nailed and was fairly easy to remove at the top so I figured I would remove the quarter round and the baseboard and remove it all the way. The quarter round came up easy but the baseboard was a different story.

The wood flooring was put down AFTER the baseboard so it was jammed between the wall and the floor. It's a good thing I planned on replacing the baseboard with something newer looking because I had to rip the old baseboard apart to get it out. After getting the old baseboard out and finishing removing the paneling, I was left with what has to be some of the UGLIEST wallpaper ever used in a dining area.

As you can see, the floor needs patching after the cabinet was removed. Fortunately I have some of this flooring stored away so hopefully that won't be too big an issue.  It will have to be built up so it's level because there are at least three floor coverings under there!

The kitchen ceiling is strange and I decided to see if there was drywall above it. I was hoping it would be easy to remove and go back to the original ceiling. I'm afraid this is where my nightmare begins! More on Tuesday. Can't work on it Monday night since I have pool league!