Patching up the holes.

Putting insulation in the kitchen walls makes a big difference. Here's Adam in the process of insulating and also pulling out the duct from the old exhaust fan:


A close-up of just what was making our kitchen so cold:

This is where the exhaust fan...exhausted. A wee metal flap is all that was protecting us from the elements. Needless to say, this hole is now patched up and the vent will be removed and repaired when we do exterior work/paint in the spring/summer.
By the way, nice mortise and tenon joint to the right, huh?

We have also put up walls in the kitchen and will post those photos soon. Now THAT makes a difference in keeping the room warm.

A Warmer Kitchen.

I, yes I, Reagan, can actually write this entry in the first person. I did a lot of work - all by myself! Adam did give me some over-the-phone assistance, though, so that I wouldn't blow myself and the house to bits with the air compressor. But I'm pretty proud of myself.

Monday was a snow day. My boss called that morning to tell me to stay home, that the roads were bad (for Boston, that's saying something). So I stayed home and worked on the kitchen. All day. But what better time to add some insulation to the house?

In addition to putting in some insulation in the upper parts of the walls, where the old cellulose had settled and left empty space, I continued what we had started with the beadboard. I carefully (most of the time) took it off and then turned it around. (That's right - sing it with me: "Turn the bead around...love to hear per-cus-sion!" Or maybe "the nail gun.") But, since these walls are exterior walls, I put in some fiberglass insulation to try to chip away at our heating bill. One can dream, anyway...


All the boards off the back wall. There just seems to be a layer of plaster insulation between the room and the exterior clapboards. Well, at least there's something.


With insulation added, and some boards already in place. And let me tell you, by the way, that getting these boards out from behind the window sill and door moldings without destroying everything was no easy task. Thank God these are getting painted over.


All back on! Next...

This corner might not be necessary, since it's most likely going to be covered with cabinets, but it's a small area.


Done and insulated!


This is an old picture that you've seen before, but just to give you an idea of what the beadboard looked like before...


I decided to go only so far with this wall...the area behind the stove will be covered with cabinets, and, well, I was really tired by this point. Tired of battling the board.


And it's all done! I had to take a board from somewhere else to fill in that left side, but I did it. Now the kitchen has a rustic, cabin-like feel. And maybe it's just mental, but I feel like it's a little warmer in there now, too.

AND, now that our electrical roughing is in, we can put up sheetrock! Finally, we'll have some walls!

This Can't Be Good.

What good is a porch if it doesn't protect your head from deadly icicles?

An Unexpected Surprise.

Generally, with home improvement, you don't really want to know what's behind the walls. It just might make you question the laws of physics (again and again).

We decided that instead of spending hours upon goopy hours of stripping the beadboard in the kitchen, we'd simply turn them around. Yes, there aren't actually any "beads" on the back of beadboard, but it's reusing the material and maybe contributing to a more "modern" look in the kitchen. We decided to start with the short wall.

However, once we pulled all the boards off, we noticed something peculiar about the brick backing of the fireplace.

Yes, you might be able to notice that there are what seem to be holes in that brick wall, which is the back of the fireplace in the dining room.

Yep, there they are. This is looking in from the fireplace opening. This whole area of masonry was totally deteriorated. One wall of the fireplace, which holds up the chimney, was not holding up the chimney. So, we did what we had to do. We went to Home Depot and bought some bricks and mortar. And we fixed it.

We took out all the loose bricks and cleared away the old mortar.

And we patched it up.



Good as new! Now back to those boards...



Ta-da! They need to be sanded down, and we'll probably paint them, but not bad, huh?

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.