I always get so excited for demo day, until I start tearing things out and remember that 1. It’s literally a pain and 2. I have to rebuild everything I tear out. Nonetheless, I was pretty psyched for demo day to finally be here for the kitchen. I had meal prepped a few weeks worth of meals, packed up everything that lived in the cabinets, and mentally prepared myself for a few days of hard labor.

In an effort to be extremely practical and only get a dumpster once, we decided to be a little overly ambitious and tear out not only the kitchen, but the master bathroom and the builtins in the basement too. Now it’s five days of demo later (the final two of which were done while Grayson was away for work) and I officially never want to move off the couch again. I’ll share more about the bathroom and the basement later; each of them were a nightmare in their own respects and I’m not even ready to process all the damage we found, but just know it involved rotting subfloors, more mold, and a termite infestation.

Demo in the kitchen actually started a few weeks ago, since we knew we had to build the pantry and that it would take time to figure that out. We took out the section of cabinetry that sat where the pantry would go and we walled off the doorway between the formal dining room and the kitchen. I was a little sad to lose the natural light from the front of the house, but I think we’ll really enjoy a more functional kitchen.

Next up was framing the pantry. Grayson handled all of that and it turned out so well! I’m so impressed by how he pulled it all together and how he taught himself to frame it. Grayson also did the electrical (minus running the new wire for the oven/microwave that will live on the left side of the pantry) and I handled the drywall finish work. We hired out extending the vent, but we probably could have done that ourselves too.

Then it was finally time for the rest of the demo. We ended up hiring someone to help us remove the counters and he took them to the Restore so they could be reused. We also found someone who wanted to reuse all the doors and drawers (they took the doors and drawers from the first demo section as well), so we were able to save some of the material from the dump! Eventually we’ll resell the range, microwave, and faucet as well.

For a few days it looked like Dexter had moved into the place. The plastic tarps were my attempt at controlling some of the dust from cutting up drywall. I intended to leave them up while we installed, taped, and mudded the new drywall, but Grayson needed to run a few more electrical outlets and I didn’t want to live with the dusty sheeting up for a week while he was away for work. The sheets rendered the entire kitchen basically unusable, so down they came for the time being.

Here’s the set up we will live with for about two weeks until the cabinets get installed. Then it’ll be another two weeks without a cooktop or sink. Also, Grayson found a utility sink at a steep discount at Home Depot because it was an open box. Eventually it’ll live in our laundry room. It’s been such a game changer during this renovation! Much better than washing dishes in the tiny sink in our half bathroom like I did for a few days.