Some assistance.

We've been focusing a lot on the kitchen lately, but as I was reviewing all of our photos, I thought it would be nice to throw up (post, not vomit) a good before and after shot, just for kicks. These are in our posts, but in case you have trouble putting things together in your head:

View from dining room towards the kitchen, before.

Same view into kitchen, but before we ripped all of the kitchen out. Is it really an improvement? It seems so, but final judgment to be made once it's all finished.

Snow.

This has nothing to do with our house renovation (except for the fact that you get to see our bare front porch sans stumpy tree-bushes, which we cut down a couple months ago). Just wanted to post a couple photos of our house in 1.5 feet of snow, and our dog Fiver enjoying it.


Piles of snow in the front.

Fiver bounding in the snow. This doesn't adequately show that she totally sinks in the deeper parts of the snow, where she has to bounce out like a bunny.

A Room without Walls.

This is what walls can do for you:
They keep dust and dirt out of your house. They keep heat in your house. They look good (better than a chicken coop). If you have walls in you kitchen, for instance, you might feel it is appropriate to spend time there, even prepare food and eat it. Depending on how well and recently you had cleaned, you might go so far as to invite guests over.

Needless to say, removing the walls from your kitchen alters its feel.

We took down some walls in the kitchen and took off all the plaster. The plaster was in bad shape, especially where we had taken down the dropped ceiling, so we just took it all off the lath. Good opportunity to do some insulating, especially since we have a giant duct (left over from the exhaust fan) bringing cold air into the room.

Also, we took out the walls of the tiny room by the side door. We changed our minds about the layout and decided that we wanted the refrigerator there. Plus, we had done such great structural reinforcement that we knew the wall was unnecessary. It makes a HUGE difference in how open the room feels now! Check it out:

Yep, looks good. Won't you be our dinner guest?

The door to the basement is now out in the open. She's a beauty.

Note the duct above the beautifully decorated door. It now has a plastic bag over it. ALSO, that square thing in the wall to the right with the concrete circle in it? The old exhaust vent from the original stove. Pretty cool.