& so it begins....

When someone says to you "treat yourself to a haircut and style 4 days before removing your floors"; IT'S A TRAP. There is tile dust in my hair....and in between my toes...and I'm pretty sure I have an unhealthy coating on the inside of my lungs.

When we first started planning our kitchen revamp, we did what all new home-owners do - we displayed an overconfidence that has now been bruised after never-ending budget re-dos. Of course it's a great idea to replace the entire flooring in your house while simultaneously juggling a full kitchen renovation. NOT. But we're doing it anyway (who doesn't love drama?? I certainly do!)

So our first weekend of renovations surprisingly was a fairly painless affair - minimal issues, minimal (okay maybe mid) level arguing and a buttload of mess.

We started out by removing the existing kitchen window that currently looks over into the Sunroom.....and by we, I mean Tim because I am a midget with T-rex arms.

Tim's first words to me, "How do I get the window out??"....ummmm....do I look like a builder?? I toddle off to youtube 'aluminium window removal'; realise I don't really care and decide to use power tools unsupervised instead. 

That desk was no match for me and my 30ish minutes of attempting to use a drill! But guess what? I did it!!!

BAM!

Meanwhile Tim had successfully worked out how to get the window out (don't ask me how he did it, I was still in the non-caring, making random encouraging noises with my mouth stage while yelling about how I deserved some recognition for removing a screwed in desk. Priorities, right?!)

Good work, Tim. & look, plumbing that will soon be moved for sink relocation.

Let's take a step back and have a look at what we are actually changing in the house walls-wise. The below pic shows the Loungeroom from the front door. That big white wall is the back of the current kitchen solid wall. We are knocking this out in a couple of weeks and it will become our new island. The alcove to the right is the entrance to the hall and will remain, with the island bench connecting to that wall it at the end.

Another view of the wall we are removing. See the kitchen peeking through? We will be building a wall starting from the old window and finishing at the hallway. This will create parallel cupboards and a new alcove between the island and the back wall that also leads into the hall. (see this Floorplan post for a much better visual explanation).

This new plan will open up the main living area and encapsulate the Study & Master Suite into its own space. It will allow conversation to flow between the Loungeroom and Kitchen without a giant big-ass wall in the way.

Enough waffling Jess! More progress shots :)

Luckily the Loungeroom contained easy laminate flooring, I removed all of the skirting boards (and claimed a chisel as my favourite thing EVER); after that the laminate floor just came out with no force.

Unfortunately the front Entrance, Kitchen and Study were not as simple. When we moved in the floors were covered with black sheet lino including the enclosed deck (Sunroom).....old people do some weird shit - like so. 

Under this majestic monstrosity sat crappy white tiles, who knew! The tiles had to be broken with a hammer and then chipped up with a rotary hammer drill with scraper attachment. Some of the tiles come up whole; most took it upon themselves to turn into horrible little pieces and about 68 times their weight in shitty dust (aka my new, persistent hair product).

Oh look, a minion. A HUGE thank you to my littlest bro-in-law for coming to help us, he's awesome :)

A surprise found under the fridge tiles. Seems the last owners had some water damage, most likely from a leaky fridge. Tim thought the particle board looked weird, poked it, and this happened. Thankfully we will be able to fix it before our fridge falls 2m and becomes a feature of the storage area under the house. I imagine that would suck when beer o'clock came round.

Next weekend we will pack up the kitchen in preparation for the electricity and sink disconnection; and sand the floors ready for new flooring install in a month or so. After that it is old wall demolition and new wall building time!

I will never be clean again.