Demolition Derby

Ahhhhh!!! We're officially in the kitchen remodel funnel! Well, technically we're kitchen-less at the moment and I guess technically we could make a decision: spend every free moment we have in the next two months laboring over as close to the kitchen of our dreams as our architecture and budget will allow or just live indefinitely without a kitchen...washing dishes in the basement utility sink and learning the fine art of microwave and toaster oven cooking....

Sorry, I know everyone and their mother is using instagram photo filters these days, but it's really the only way to make this whole mess of a project look semi-romantic and exciting...
Anyways, last Saturday Jean's brother-in-law and I grabbed our sledge hammers and obliterated the kitchen down to the studs and subfloor. The space feels so cool now...so open...so raw. Makes us just want to leave it as is except for the no sink, oven, cooktop, or countertop part.

The diagonally-laid solid wood subfloor is particularly cool...

Even our (leaky) temporary sink has some tempting rustic charm...

Wouldn't it be a shame to seal up that hidden neitherland area above the ceiling of our stairs? It's like a whole other entirely useless room in there!

We're hoping that all this roughing it will be worth it when we finally complete the project. To keep our spirits and motivation up, we have to continually refer to the sketchup model of the final space.

We're so excited to have an open kitchen that we can actually hang out in! The center island is going to awesome for prep, eating, and talking. The low seating area at the back will allow us to utilize our over abundance of dining chairs (ridiculous considering we don't have a dining room).
Framing the island is a steel structure our friend Nick at Piano Nobile is making for us to support the span. It will be powdercoated steel profiles with an incorporated rail for hanging pots and pans, plants, utensils, etc.

The kitchen will also get all new electrical and a reclaimed oak hardwood floor, new appliances, etc. So, yeah, it's going to be a long journey, but at this point we don't really have any choice. ONWARD WITH THE KITCHEN!!

'30 Kitchen Dreamin'

So, we're standing on the edge of the funnel here at 2430...the kitchen remodel funnel. And there we pause peaking over the edge of the funnel, half scared, half excited, half unsure, half confident, and half really bad at fractions. In this moment of reflection, we'd like to use a few posts to share a glimpse at what is inspiring our soon to be torn up and put back together kitchen. We're lovin' this island. We really want a dining height eating surface and this is the most elegant integration of one yet.

The feeling of this room is really nice. The graphic black kitchen with the mis-matched dining chairs.

A nice mix of materials.

The red here helps define the work area graphically.

More shelving progress

2 more shelves done and I think I might not need the 4th one. Here are some pics installed with goodies on the shelves.

Above is a before shot with blue tape outlining the proposed shelving arrangement (the TV was originally going to go here). Months and months later the dream is nearly realized! Just have to figure out how to finish the shelves, but not change the color of the wood (I don't want it to yellow...any ideas?).

Shelving at last...almost...sort of

Anyone who has visited '30 in the past 2+ months may recall the seemingly purposeless white wood textured panels on our wall. The panels were the beginning of our built-in shelving...one of those projects that has taken way too long. We got one step closer recently. Finally have 1 shelf of 4 sort-of-kind-of ready. I'm pretending it's ready at least. 3 more to go! Plus notching for the brackets and finishing them.



I am building the shelves using this great bracket system from Rakks and using the wood-textured wall panels (actually planks of primed house siding) as wall panels that hide the the required vertical brackets in the gaps between. The shelves will be lightened white oak and will be adjustable in height using the clever camming action of the Rakks bracket.

More on the whole project when I finally get the damn thing done.