2 weekends of work and only one blog post

I know you were all waiting with bated breath!  ;)

Ok, sorry.  But somehow there also seems to be a ton to do after work as well.  And at work.  Besides my actual work, which I still do on occasion.  At least often enough to hit all my deadlines.

Anyway - the electricians came and roughed in.  The plumbers came, turned off the stove and the sink, and roughed in.  I destroyed.  R2 destroyed.  I put up drywall.  R2 very patiently held heavy drywall so I could put it up.  A journey in photos below...

After the electricians and plumbers came, I had holes in the wall, wires on the floor, pipes sticking up out of the floor, and a detached stove and sink.

From Kitchen Reno 2

I tore out the old sink and base cabinets, to discover -

From Kitchen Reno 2

tile.  Set on about 2" of mortar, which was set on a half inch of plaster on wire mesh.  Translation:  about 2.5" of concrete.  Never fear, I had a plan.  I would just put up a sheet of half inch drywall on the top portion of the wall, down to the tile, pop off the tile to reduce the thickness, and construction-glue a sheet of 3/8 drywall to the bottom part.  Sure, there'd be a little mismatch, but no problem.

First, I had to pull the tin molding away so the drywall would slip under.  Then, we had to chisel out some holes for the outlets, one of which was just chilling out on the floor, and the other was fastened to the old backsplash.  Finally, we had to put up the drywall.  R2's muscle was key here.  (Her height was pretty handy too!).

From Kitchen Reno 2

Does anyone see the hole in this plan?  Anyone?  Yeah, me neither.  Until - the drywall wasn't even close to sticking on to that mortar with the glue.  See - glue needs a flat surface.  Mortar is bumpy; there are lines in between all the tiles.  Plan = fail.

Well, ok, fine then, I would do it properly and tear out enough of the concrete to put up another piece of drywall where it would be seen.  I did this much in 45 minutes.

From Kitchen Reno 2

Then R2 came back from the gym, and did the rest in a half hour.  (I loosened it.  I swear.).

From Kitchen Reno 2

So then it looked like this:

From Kitchen Reno 2

And the part of my hand I kept hitting with the hammer when I missed the chisel looked like this:

From Kitchen Reno 2

So I went to the bar.

Next day - remember that 1/2" drywall I put up yesterday?  Yeah, well, now it's too thick.  R2 flexed again, drywall came down, 3/8" went up, and I went about my merry way covering the new hole.

From Kitchen Reno 2

Which left me with a conundrum.  See the base there where the two wires are coming down?  See the exposed insulation?  Honestly, I'd have just cheated and ignored it, since you'll never see it.  If it was behind cabinets.  But - that part would be behind the stove.  Maybe exposed insulation behind a stove is a bad plan.  Back to the drawing board...  I was tired of re-doing though, so I consulted.  The Dad and the Google.  And Rachel's brother.  End result - I cheated again.  I perhaps should have torn it all the way down.  But it's perfectly sound concrete.  And all that chiseling just takes too long (and hurts!).  So I popped off the tile again, cut a piece of drywall, and used concrete screws to fasten it to the wall.  Problem solved.  Sort of.  Well enough.  I hope.  Pics to follow when I upload the photos from last weekend.

What else did I do?  What, you think that didn't take me 5 days (one 3 day weekend + one regular)?  'Cause it kind of did...  Ok.  I also put up some more drywall, and put together a few cabinets.  I thought the plumbers would need the island cabinets ready when they came, but they did not.  They will need them on Thursday though, when they hook up my new sink and faucet (and old stove)!  Sans countertop still, but who cares, we'll be using the kitchen again!