Some Before and After Photos Of Remodel

I wanted to post a few more pictures because I kind of jumped ahead and skipped over some pictures I wanted to post earlier.
Tip: Use Wax Paper to move heavy cabinetry or other objects over wood or laminate floors to prevent scratching of floors.

Diapers work well too .

In this before picture look at the [...]

I wanted to post a few more pictures because I kind of jumped ahead and skipped over some pictures I wanted to post earlier.

Tip: Use Wax Paper to move heavy cabinetry or other objects over wood or laminate floors to prevent scratching of floors.

Diapers work well too .

In this before picture look at the top of the cabinets. We decided in the remodel get rid of that gap where we always filled with “kitchy” stuff. We didn’t want to do that anymore because we would just fill the space with whatever we could find and never liked it nor had attachment to. Every company we worked with whether it was Omega Cabinetry, Thomasville Cabinetry, or IKEA they all had a solution. IKEA is not custom cabinetry, but they do have 39″ wall cabinets and they were a perfect solution. We also gained a little bit of room if you measure countertop to bottom of cabinet with the new setup.

As I already posted that we scraped the popcorn off the ceiling and made it smooth. The reason for this was because we were moving the cabinets to the ceiling and the eye would be drawn upwards. Another reason would be the trim above the new cabinets would show alot of gaps or light holes because of the uneven surface. The third reason is that it just looks better and if you’re spending the money, spend a little bit more to get all the details covered. Its just a detail, but its a big one.

The new cabinets probably have 3″ from the ceiling as opposed to about 14″ with the old cabinets. The ceiling is almost never level, so this where the trim comes into play. Some people don’t even do the upper trim. We just felt it was another detail worth doing. The piece costs around $20 bucks.

This is our installer Marius putting in the uppers.

Here your eye is drawn to the ceiling. Can’t have the popcorn there.

Cabinets flat packed.

The whole kitchen pushed over into the other room.

Some before and afters of the wall knockdown:

After knockout.

The new pantry is split between the two tall cabinets that surround the refrigerator. I’ve already mentioned a few times, the paint is 0 VOC paint from Freshaire. You can get it at Home Depot. No smell at all.

Popcorn Ceiling Removal and Drywall Demo

Here are a few pictures after the popcorn ceiling has been removed. Popcorn removal was definitely something that was on the fringe of our budget, but once we did it we knew we made the right choice.
We interviewed with 4 different companies that specialize in popcorn removal and we found Renew Ceilings on Angies List [...]

Here are a few pictures after the popcorn ceiling has been removed. Popcorn removal was definitely something that was on the fringe of our budget, but once we did it we knew we made the right choice.

We interviewed with 4 different companies that specialize in popcorn removal and we found Renew Ceilings on Angies List for the South Florida area. They rated high and were extremely good at what they did. We hired Renew Ceilings to do our drywall cutout of our pantry as well as the popcorn scrape. They brought in a crew of at least 7-8 people and got it all done – the whole job inside one day. Everyone we talked to said it would take a few days and some said we can’t stay in the house overnight. These guys are professionals and they left the place clean. It would have been a tremendous undertaking for almost anyone else we interviewed to get the job done in the same amount of time.

C’s parent’s just used this company the week before we did to scrape their ceilings and C’s mom told us that the primer was the reason she had a headache for 3 days. Well we’re eco friendly. So I haul butt down to Home Depot and pick up 4 jugs/gallons of this Freshaire Drywall primer. This paint and primer is sold only at Home Depot and has no VOC’s which means no headaches.

It costs a little more, but the amount is negligible when weighing in the discomfort and potential health issues from exposure to VOC’s from traditional primers and paints.

Ok so I was trapped upstairs during the process, but I took a shot through the plastic. They plastic up the area that is being scraped – walls, floors, you name it. In this case it was the area of the kitchen, living room, dining room, laundry room, and downstairs bathroom. We couldn’t only scrape the kitchen because now with the wall knockdown it transitions into the other two rooms. The whole enchilada would need to be scraped.

This picture shows the wall not fully taken down yet, just the hole cutout. The electrical had to be rerouted here and the doorbell was moved. Its that black thing in the foreground near the ceiling.

Here is why you want to remove the air vents before popcorn scraping. Actually the company we hired should have taken these down. It was two screws…

Closeup of popcorn scrape, primed, but not painted yet:

Here are some shots after they cleaned up the popcorn from all over the place and the drywall was well, drying.