And so it begins...

Phase 1 of operation Blow Our House Up and Slowly Try to Put it Together began a few weeks ago.  Actually, it began almost a year ago when myself and some good friends (aka. the CHUMPS) replaced a load bearing wall between our dining room and living room with an engineered beam.  So we've had a hole in our ceiling since January...which is pretty awesome.

Our intention was to start our remodel many months ago, but the lack of experience in all things remodel and home ownership coupled with our recognition that Paula and I have different interior design aesthetics whilst sharing no ability to conceptualize design has slowed us down.  And then there's the obvious which is Paula's insane schedule that regularly saps her of energy and motivation.  She's rallied more times than not though while I bug her about how low the carbon footprint is of locally harvested alder cabinet materials, the advantages of low-formaldehyde medium-density fiberboard, great strides in locally produced recycled concrete countertop materials, and other boring topics that would put most normal people to sleep.  So, she's a champ.

About a month ago though, we sealed our fate by throwing down a chunk of cash on new kitchen cabinets and countertops.  Paula and I have been drinking Pepto-Bismol with dinner since.  They've not been delivered yet, but their imminent arrival has required us to start getting serious about this remodel and begin making progress.  So, I spent two weeks thinking the remodel through a bit and trying to plan all of the steps for a major task that I'm woefully unprepared for.  And finally, one weekend when Paula was on call I hung two large green sheets (I think Maddie's thinks they're like the green curtain the Wizard of Oz hides behind because she's been so scared of all the noises coming out from behind them...) to separate our temporary living/dining/and cooking quarters from the chaos and demolished much of the kitchen.  The process has taken a bit longer than I had scheduled (probably because I have no idea what I'm doing), but I think we've been making decent progress.

This weekend, Paula and I completed our first task where we can actually see progress towards a new livable, functional kitchen.  We finished putting in a new-to-us red oak floor in the kitchen.  I bought about 250 square feet of old red oak flooring in all types of condition.  We really only needed about 200 square feet of flooring, but there's a ton of crap that you get when you buy reclaimed flooring (e.g., tongue and/or grooves missing, split boards, etc.).  But now we've got a sweet hardwood floor with most of the imperfections strategically placed where the cabinets will be.  All that's left for us to do now with the floors is to rent a drum sander so all the miscellaneous boards that have traveled far and wide to end up in our kitchen can feel and hopefully look somewhat uniform (we're not going to stain the floors yet).  For now though, we're enjoying having a tangible example of progress behind the green curtain.  Victory is ours....

Next step is either installing our new windows, running the new plumbing, or running the new electrical.  Not exactly sure though since, I repeat, I have no idea what I'm doing.