A Long Conversation, and the Beginning of the Kitchen Demo

February 8, 2014

Bob, Julie, Liz and I all showed up early at the house on Saturday – a little after 8AM. Though we got an early start to the day, we ended up having several really lengthy (and good/productive) conversations.

Down in the basement, I talked with Bob about the various pipes we would be running in and up to the second floor. I learned a lot more about how air conditioning works, refrigerant, condensate lines, and how traps/vents help prevent sewer gas from coming into the house.

While we were talking, we ended up getting called upstairs to have a larger conversation about the wood trim on the first floor. Over the past few months, Liz and Julie have been working on stripping the numerous layers of paint and varnish that exist on top of the woodwork around the windows, doors, and baseboards.

We learned a while back that the wood we have is souther yellow pine, a fairly rare wood that’s not easily/readily available nowadays. Our original goal was to keep it, if we found it worth saving.

Today, the question of whether to keep the wood or not came up again as a serious topic. Bob was of the mind, initially, that we remove it all and replace it with something newer (but appropriate to the house). There are areas where the woodwork was installed improperly or poorly, and no amount of stripping/cleaning would fix that.

Julie raised a concern that, after we refinish the floors and walls, the older look of the wood might not match. Additionally, there are portions where the wood is starting to show its age – and is splintering due to all the layers of paint it’s had to endure these many years.

Ultimately, both Bob and Julie expressed their concerns but left it to us to decide whether the wood is something we want to continue to attempt to preserve. I’ve been going back and forth, as has Liz… though she feels stronger about keeping the original wood.

Me, I have a harder time seeing the details of the grain. My bias has more to do with our overall timeline. While Liz and I both have an interest in keeping things original to the house, we’re trying to figure out where that line is – when does it make sense to try to preserve something, and when might be the time to decide that replacement is the next best course of action?

As we’re figuring out this big topic, Liz and Julie decided to focus the remainder of their time on the kitchen.

Getting some of the cabinet doors numbered and removed. The top row of cabinets were poorly done, and not worth saving.

More doors removed…

Liz and Julie, working on breaking up the floor a bit, to see what’s underneath.

Beneath the first layer of tile is… another layer of tile. See that humongo piece of floor that’s broken off and resting against the counter? Liz did that, all on her own.