It's Happening

We are starting the remodel of the kitchen...we are starting now because we have had the whole Fall/Winter off (no projects) and because hubby is putting in 11-14 hours of work per day and I am having vertigo issues. Isn't that what everyone does when they remodel???

He asked me what I wanted to do this past weekend, a statement I am sure he regrets, and I wanted to just bite the bullet and get started on the kitchen.

We have been talking about it for over a year
We purchased the flooring a year ago
It seems overwhelming
It will be a mess
I have been hoping for a year that HGTV, the Kitchen Cousins, House Crashers or the Fairy Kitchen Godmothers would come and wave their magic and it would all be done. That...or win the lottery so we could hire someone.

Since none of the above happened...we just went for it.

The kitchen coming in from the dining room...doesn't look bad until

you round the corner to your left and this is what you see...ick.

Not a pretty sight.
Can I just say right now that I am extremely ticked off at the previous owners (how ever many there were) that wallpapered over wallpaper and also decided to paint over the 2nd wallpaper. :(

The scoring tool does not work, it just can't penetrate through the painted wallpaper, so we are using our trusty little steamer to loosen up the painted wallpaper, rip that off like a stuck band aid, use the steamer again for round 2 of wallpaper and the backing paper. Then it will be a matter of washing down the walls to make sure ALL the glue and paper pieces are off so we don't have a deja vu of our 1/2 bath incident, before we drywall, sand, prime and paint.

Did I say this was going to be a loooooong process?

This is 3/4 full of just the wall above. The steamer is small so we take small breaks fairly often. When both the red and green lights are on you have to wait a bit for the water to heat up, when there is no steam or very little, then you shut it off, let it cool down and fill up with ONLY distilled water.

The glue gets stuck all over your hands and your tools... the trusty putty knife.

Without her, the job would be much harder. The paddle is used for the larger areas and if you can see on the hose there is a small tool that helps with...well...small areas, tight spots and corners.

Yes, this will be a loooong process but in the end I think we will be happy with what we did. It isn't going to be some Better Homes and Gardens remodel, no switching out cabinets or rearranging the whole kitchen design. Just a few tweaks here and there. Right now it is all muscle, time and what we already have but at least it is a start.

Don't expect to see some awesome reveal in a few weeks or even a month. With traveling up north for daughters' baby shower and the birth of our first grandson and with hubby's crazy schedule it will take some time. Patience is a virtue that I keep reminding myself.