Thought of the Day…Is it over yet?

As you know from reading my other Kitchen Remodel posts, I am sooooo ready for my kitchen remodel to be over (and yet it really hadn’t even started).

I finished packing the kitchen last night and made it to bed at a reasonable hour, sort of. I was startled awake when I heard the newspaper being thrown onto the driveway and panicked that I’d overslept…

…I couldn’t figure out why it was so dark… I had pushed my sleeping mask off and then I looked at the clock… ARGH! It was 3:00AM! Think I’m a little stressed?

The guys (Brad, who you met in my New Kitchen, Part 2: Contractors post, Kevin and Miguel) arrived promptly at 8:00AM, just as we’d arranged, this morning to start the kitchen demolition.

Brad had not seen the mold on pervious visits because he didn’t want to disturb the mold behind the poster board I had put up to “hide” it. As I stood across the room, he took off the poster board. Hello, you ugly mess! Your days of making me sick are up! You ready to leave my house?

First to leave the room was the island… Good-bye, Island… Uh oh… the electrical wire was coming up in the middle. We’d all assumed it would be on the right… means it has to be moved. Why would the builder have them put it on the end? He was an IDIOT!

Then after the cabinet fronts were off, it was time to take the cabinets down. “Hi, Kevin! You, Brad and Miguel are doing all the work. Where’s Brent? Is he a slacker?” I think this is Miguel “Miquel, is that you?” Miguel was hiding from me [and my camera]…

And guess what we found… OH NO! I was expecting more mold, but like this… NOPE… I wasn’t panicking [yet]… the wall was coming down anyway, so no worries…

Yuck, MORE MOLD!

This is SOOOO GROSS! Have I told you that I’m allergic to mold? No wonder I get so sick!!! It is kind of interesting how it looks like it was painted on the wall… You can even see the rectangle where the microwave used to be…

Brad and Kevin are removing the counter tops…

Flex those muscles, Brad! 😉 (LOL!! That’s what I said when I took this picture… sorry, Brad!) Hey, did you coordinate your T-shirts? 😉

as the countertop tore away I see it… DANG IT! More mold!

Here’s what we saw after all the base cabinets were out…

Not, too bad, right? Now look at it all…

Oh, but wait! While I was across the room talking with Brent, Hubby comes over and says, “They need to talk with you.” I hear “sub-floor” and panic sets in!! I walked over and saw this…

Oh, NO!!! There’s more to the right…

Brad said he’d go look in the crawl space to see if it was in the joists… he said that it didn’t look like it, but they’d no for sure when they get the sub-floor out and can see the joists.

Now that the cabinets were out, up went the barrier wall and HEPA filter…

…and on went the personal protective gear… Hi, Kevin!

Hey, Miguel… he rushed to turn around… even with his gear on he still didn’t want his picture taken. 😀

Well, after a lot of banging, bagging, vacuuming, and applying anti-fungal stuff to the wall studs and floor, here’s what is left of the east wall in our kitchen…

See that large black pipe? It’s the culprit… I could get much closer today. See that spot inside the red circle? That’s the whole that the idiot who drilled a hole in the SEWAGE line while hanging the original microwave (when the house was built 17 years ago). Hey, guy… you suck at your job!! 👿

They had insulation on the inside wall. And when the moisture from the sewage line got on the insulation it wicked it away. This is another part of the wall… The guys removed all the insulation. They said that this black spot wasn’t mold, but I didn’t want to chance it.

Here’s what the floor looked like after the anti-fungal application…

Oh yeah… Kevin found this inside the wall… kinda of strange given it’s dated 1973 and the house was built in 1993…

Tomorrow the third party testing company comes to test the air quality to ensure there are no more mold spores… I hope there aren’t any more surprises… Wednesday the electrician is coming to rewire the new lights and outlets.

Join me tomorrow for an update… In the meantime, I need to move more furniture and take down the remaining wallpaper and trim…

…_or should I go to sleep and you can wake me when it is over?
_