Starting at the Top

Okay, we have done the tour, so now here's an overview of what is to come. And watch out, because a few balls of snow might be headed this way.

We realized that we were not going to get away with just replacing the taps and sink - a countertop was a definite need seeing as the area where we would put the taps through the sink was totally rotted out on the old one.

This is the underside of the counter where the old taps were. Even though we had decided we needed to change it, we had no idea it was this bad until we changed it.....but I am getting ahead of myself as this picture was taken a week later than what I am documenting! But I wanted to give you an idea of what lay ahead.

So, at this point we had the sink - a nice one and a half combo that would give more sink without losing too much counterspace - the taps, and had picked out an inexpensive countertop from IKEA. Along with the dishwasher, this brought us right up to our gift money and we were very pleased with our selections. We decided we had enough in our renovation fund, which we just started, to purchase the matching countertop for the other side. Who knows if they would discontinue it or the colour (white) would be different....well, that was our excuse and we are sticking to it!

Duck, here comes one from left field!

We decided if we were doing all this we should paint the kitchen as well. I mean who wants to have beautiful counter tops and cruddy looking walls?

Lookout, here comes an idea to take down that awful stipple ceiling instead of painting it!

Uh oh, did someone mention new cupboards? Okay, we have been able to dodge this one a couple of times and leave it for the future, though it did throw a few curves in there. We can save up and do it right in the future, and enjoy what we have now. I will let you in on how big this dream got in another post though - it is good for a laugh or two!

So, with a game plan ready to go and a few days before the dishwasher arrived (January 5th), we began.

The first task at hand was to remove the cieling. But to do that we needed to prep first. We removed as much stuff as possible, but instead of emptying out all the cupboards we decided to use plastic and sheets. This was about 75% effective at keeping the dust and stipple out of the cupboards.

Hubby climbed our two-step ladder and began the arduous task of hand scraping the stipple off the ceiling off the raw drywall underneath. He had this wonderful idea of having me vacumm up the mess as he went. I am a full-blown asthmatic who is severely allergic to anything in the dust category (along with mold and smoke). We had no masks and at the moment, neither of us were wearing eye protection either (this is a point to remember for later, folks).

The picture on the right shows hubby with goggles on. This is after he felt some of the grit almost go into one eye, but he was fine. There was a point, when I was bending over vacumming, where I felt a pile of stuff come down over my head and back. My wonderful husband tells me "it's snowing". Little did we realize what an ironic statement that would be.

The left picture shows a small sample of the mess left on the floor, even after trying to vacuum it up. I decided to leave it until the end and swept it up, vacuuming the dust left behind that the broom couldn't get. There must have been a kitchen garbage bag full of debris, but at least the ceiling was bare, and after a bit of a sanding, ready to be filled, sanded again, and then painted. However, these last three steps will have to wait, I am afraid, until after the installations.

So here we are, ready for the big fun to begin.