After last week’s work, I started stressing about how to frame the rear wall in a way that would be either inconspicuous or elegant. In other words, my options were to try to hide the laundry area or to accentuate it. I actually lost sleep about it. I wasn’t happy with either option, and I felt relieved when my wife emailed me on Tuesday to say she’d figured out what she wants. She put together a portfolio of kitchen images that had design concepts she liked, and she drew out this design for our rear wall:
It’s a blessing and a curse.
I like the look and layout of this design, but it involves a lot more detail work than I had planned. The faux cabinet doors on the left will hide a full size door with access to the stacked, front-loading washer and dryer. The faux cabinet and shelves on the right will be a false front for a hidden, slide-out pantry. The refrigerator will extend about four inches farther into the room to give the cabinets depth, and it’ll all be topped with crown molding to add a formal look. The built-ins will be made with pine and beadboard so it blends our new kitchen in with the rest of our old house.
I was swayed when we realized it would be cheaper than framing a closet for the fridge and buying a pantry that matches our new cabinets. And since I have some experience designing built-in cabinets, I wasn’t too intimidated by the complexity of the project.
Deciding on a course of action for the rear kitchen wall allowed us to configure the chronology of the rest of the remodel, and we got started. After work last week, we patched the divots and cracks in the wall and ceiling with mud. On Saturday morning, we sanded until the entire floor was white. While the dust settled, we went to the hardware store to get the new sub-floor and the finished plywood for the new cabinet design. The mortarboard is pretty heavy and annoying to work with, but it’ll hide the imperfections in the floor and give us a more level base for the tile. Here’s what the room looked like at the end of the day on Saturday:
On Sunday, we drew out where the new cabinets, counters and backsplash will be:
There’s no use spending a lot of time repairing the area behind the cabinets. We’ll get it all nice and flat, but it doesn’t have to be flawless.
We also got started on the rear wall where we had a lot of sheetrock patching to do. It was raining off and on all weekend, so we brought the sawhorses into the kitchen and worked in there. It was pretty cramped, to say the least. This was the room at the end of the day on Sunday:
As you can see, there will be some space behind the new refrigerator wall. By building it this way, we don’t have to move the dryer vent and outlet.
We changed our plan a little on Monday morning. We took down the faux wall framing and did more sheetrock work on the top right corner of the rear wall area. I also moved the junction box and rewired the old light fixture. After that, I tightened and replaced the framing. After a lot of measurements with the tape and the level, the cabinet area eventually came together. This is what the room looked like after we cleaned up on Monday night:
It’s all coming together pretty well. On Tuesday, the electrician is updating our fuse box and adding/moving a few outlets. We’ll spend the rest of the week skim-coating the walls and finishing the new built-in cabinets with crown molding and filler/caulk.
To recap, here’s where we are in regards to the plan:
Disassemble the dining room table and take it to the garageMove all the appliances into the dining roomRelocate the hot water heater to the crawl spaceDemo the existing cabinets and the rear closet wallsRemove the tile floorResurface the ceilingLay a new subfloor- Center the oven plug and add new outlets
Re-frame the rear wallMove the dryer ventSheetrock/mud the rear wall- Repair and paint the walls
- Tile the floors
- Install cabinets and counter tops
- Move all the appliances back into the kitchen
Our plan is to paint the whole room with primer on Thursday after work. You can’t tell how well you’ve smoothed out the walls and ceiling until everything’s the same color and the shadows accentuate your mistakes. We’ll do any remaining work on the sheetrock on Friday, and we’ll paint the room red on Friday night or Monday morning. This weekend, we’ll tile the floor.
UPDATE: Kitchen Remodel 4: The Transformation
Tags: Beadboard, Cabinets, Drywall, Electrical, Kitchen, Plywood
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