DIY Kitchen Remodel, Part 2: Demolition!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 7:33AM I've FINALLY finished organizing all of our DIY Kitchen Renovation pictures & decided to remind everyone what we were dealing with when we first started on this process...
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10/2010
We started with Part 1 of this series, the before shots of our DIY kitchen remodel. So our obvious next (& first) step? Demolition!
It was fun and not-so-fun at the same time. Fun, because it's cool to hit things and tear things apart. Not-so-fun because it is a lot of tiring work!
We (okay, my husband) hacked tile from the wall...
...only to realize that since we damaged the drywall so bad, we needed to cut it out and replace it. Would have been nice to figure that out at the beginning - it would have saved us hours of banging away (& I am sure our neighbors would have appreciated it as well!) at these finicky, fragile terra cotta tiles. They just splintered everywhere. Definitely not as easy as you see on TV!
Oh yeah - along with this, down came the microwave/range hood, too. Good riddance, black box!
I mentioned it before, but our budget for this project was $1,500. You can assume from that number that we weren't installing custom cabinetry and granite counter tops, but we did make a HUGE change by removing the upper cabinets! They were unattractive cabinets, bulky & heavy looking, despite being white. I always felt like they were going to fall on top of me! Taking these down immediately opened up the space! Having a decently large kitchen, I didn't expect to notice such a difference from this.
To refresh your memory, here is the before shot of this same area:
Soon, we were left with a pretty pathetic looking space. It was time for the next step! Prep the walls, paint them, and install hundreds (thousands?) of 3/4" tile? Hmm...perhaps!
DIY, Interior Design, Kitchen 
Reader Comments (7)
You were featured on Daily Candy Chicago today! So cool! I never comment, but had to when I saw that. :)
Thanks Sarah! It is very exciting!
Very cool, looking forward to reading more about this project :)
I'm always so jealous of those who are brave enough to do their own remodels! I'm really excited to see how this turned out!
I want to see more!! I can't wait!
I've been waiting for you to resume this!!! :) $1500 seems like an insanely low price for a remodel, I can't wait to take away some tips from you guys :)
I wish I had been a better picture taker back then! So many thing I missed or messed up.