Let's not blow up the house...

I know last week there was a small teaser for things going on at Isthmus House but I think it's worth another week until we continue that story!

This week, let's talk about other things that are happening around here - like doing my best to not blow the place up.

That might seem a bit vague but I promise we'll get there after a brief review:

In the last month or two, we've had lots of people come in to look at the house for bids, lots of work done (so stay tuned!), and lots of my time spent here as well. With all of this going on, it seemed pertinent to invite a friend (see: also local real estate expert) to take a look around and let me know if there were any areas that needed course correction.

Mostly, this was good news. Lots of projects in progress and, while it's not like I'll be selling any time soon, plans were moving resale value in the right direction. One major timeline change was needed though: the upstairs kitchen (aka my workshop) had to go.

The original plan for that kitchen had been to wait until after the first floor kitchen was completed and then gut it to make it a huge master bedroom. In the meantime, it made a nice place to do things like strip cabinet doors, wash out paintbrushes and keep all of my tools.

With the new plan, it was leaving and pronto.

First was getting all of my stuff out of it. If you've ever hired a contractor for a project, you know how many tools they generally have on hand. Think along those lines, add the heaviest thing I own that everything was housed in and consider that it was all going to the basement.

Once I'd moved all of that (let's just say it took a few trips) and The Roommate helped me get my old door collection downstairs, it was time to move the appliances out.

That sounds easy enough, right? Yeaaaah, but gas lines generally shouldn't be messed with and we were dealing with a still-connected gas range. If I was going to have my plumber out in the interest of disconnecting it and not blowing up the house doing it myself, I was going to make the most of the visit.

We also needed to take care of the kitchen sink - which was easier said than done since it required sawing the drain out of the wall.

To get started on getting our plumber enough room to do his job, I had to first disconnect the sink:

Disconnecting the P-trap and supply lines took about 30 seconds - but the rest was glued in

Recycling a plaster container as a drain catch - why not?

After disconnecting the trap, I had to remove all of the sink clamps keeping the sink attached underneath the counter top. It was simple to unscrew all of the brackets - it just got a little old after the first ten!

No more sink!

Once the sink was finally out, the counter top just needed a nudge - or yank - in the right direction before I could carry it out. And finally, I could get to my cabinetry!

No more counter!

The next day, Jake sawed it right off and foamed the drain shut since I'm determined no one will ever make this a kitchen again!

He also successfully refrained from blowing up my house (told you we'd come full circle!) while removing the world's largest gas line from my soon-to-be master bedroom AND study-to-be (more on that later).

Then, our friends came over to try to help us actually get rid of the appliances by throwing them (nicely, gently and in a controlled fashion) over our balcony. Sadly, we ended up deciding that three men plus a large appliance plus two women on a small balcony with a waist high railing might not be the best idea for balance and control and resorted instead to movers to get all of our appliances out to the yard for our impending garage sale where both ranges and refrigerators subsequently sold! 

Deciding that this was a potential missed opportunity for friends getting to throw stuff off the balcony, they instead ripped apart my nailed in place cabinets (I tried to save them for salvage and couldn't when they fell apart with almost no force) and threw the pieces into the yard below.

We have a bit of a mess in the backyard now but we'll use the clean pieces for fires and the rest will be recycled where possible.

So the master is underway and looking better already, although you might have to take my word for it:

The best part? It turns out they built the cabinets notched in over the original baseboards - so they're intact and just need to be repainted!

Now, I wonder where else we'll need baseboards - guess you'll just have to wait and find out next week!