A Bitch of a Kitchen

We moved into our new house in August. Five months later, and I've shown you very little of it. You've probably caught glimpses here or there, but I haven't openly documented how much this place has changed.

It sort of makes me feel unaccomplished, like we haven't truly finished anything. But we're actually working on putting the final touches on a few rooms right now, so I hope to be sharing some official before and after pics soon.

But first, I thought I'd start by showing you the room in our house that is next up on our list of projects. It's arguably the most important room in the house. And, oddly enough, it's the room I currently hate the most. It's received very little cosmetic love and attention thus far.

That room? It's the kitchen.

Behold: Photos of our ugly-ass kitchen, from the day after we closed on the house.

Yes, that is an ungodly amount of z-brick. Yes, those are parquet floors.

Yes, that is shoe molding being used as crown molding.

Yes, the z-brick even goes behind the refrigerator. Lucky us.

Oh, and YES, that is rosebud wallpaper, with a heart border, all of which was just installed in--wait for it--2009.

And let's not pass up the opportunity to admire the wooden heart valance/shelf thingy up above the sliding glass door.

*sigh* We have our work cut out for us, don't we?

A few things have changed. We couldn't rip down that wallpaper fast enough, and the heart shelf/valance thing was an early casualty. We also tore out the z-brick that surrounded the dishwasher. We moved our laundry from the basement to that gigantic oversized pantry (there were already laundry hookups in there). But then we got overwhelmed and distracted with other things, so the kitchen is just in a state of... ugly. Unfinished ugly.

In September/October, we ripped our family room ceiling and walls down to the studs and put up new drywall (with help from my dad, and our friends Emily and Pete). After that monster of a project, we were beaten down. So, we took a break from big projects, choosing instead to tackle things like painting and window treatments and replacing all of our hollow wooden interior doors with six-panel slab doors. And then we got through the busy holidays.

Now? Now, it's January, it's a new year, and we are ready for a project. A BIG project.

We are preparing to tackle that beast of a kitchen. To rid ourselves of z-brick forever, we have to (temporarily) remove all of the upper cabinets, the countertops, and a couple of the base cabinets in order to rip the upper portion of the walls down to the studs. Then, we'll put up new drywall, and tape/mud/sand it all. We also have plans to paint the cabinets, install a tile backsplash, replace some of the fixtures, and... replace the floors.

I'm not going to lie to myself this time; this is going to take a while. But instead of dropping off the face of the earth and stopping in to blog only occasionally with "OMG WE'RE SO BUSY, MY HOUSE IS A HELLISH MESS, I'M GOING TO DIE" posts, I figure that I'll try to keep you all updated on where we are in the process. You know, so you can live in kitchen renovation hell right along with us. :)

Right now, we're finishing up the research/planning stages, but we hope to start to buy materials in the next few weeks, and finally begin making progress (DEMO!!) in early February. We're somewhat intimidated and are still in search of a little help (Bueller?) but it has to be done! Living without a kitchen is never fun, and living without a kitchen with a toddler is like... have I used the word hell yet?

And so the countdown begins...

Have any of you tackled a big DIY kitchen renovation? Anyone have any experience with removing z-brick? How about (safely, temporarily) removing countertops without damaging them? Anyone just want to sympathize/empathize with my ugly kitchen woes? :)