1919 American Four Square

Moving on…. if you missed part 1 and part 2 of this exciting adventure, see “Kitchen Reno - part 1″ here and then here.

So we determined we would go with the unfitted kitchen.  It was more in keeping with the era of the house and kinder to our budget.  We had the basic components.  Next up?   A little research for me.  Demolition for Dennis.

No doubt about it, he loves this stuff.

I purchased Jane Powell’s Bungalow Kitchens as well as Bungalow Bathrooms.    I also became an avid reader of the House Blogs web site, American Bungalow forums and other resources.    We found out that homeowners who couldn’t afford subway tile would often have the plaster scored to look like tile.    A couple of coats of oil-based paint gave the plaster the kind of sheen that resembled tile.    Well, that’s what we had here!    The lower wall was separated from the upper by a chair rail.    The lower wall (about 5 feet) was scored and the upper wall (also about 5 feet) was smooth plaster.    Unfortunately, the walls have been painted so many times, the score lines were disappearing.    The solution?    Heat gun.

Now, for some reason, the heat gun has been my domain since we moved in.  We’ve used it alot.  Alot.  A whole lot. I don’t know if Dennis figured I had more experience in this area because of the whole blow dryer thing or what.   But the heat gun and I are good friends. So I set out to strip the old paint off those lower walls.    You know, a room seems small until you start stripping paint off the walls.  Then it’s massive.

Let’s take another quick peek at the room as it was when we moved in.

The bottom wall (the scored part) was green.  I don’t know exactly what color green, it was not      exactly hunter green and not really pine green.  It was kind of in between those two.  The chair rail was burgundy latex and the upper wall and trim was white latex.    Inside the cabinets (and inside the small closet in the bathroom/pantry was BRIGHT! YELLOW! PAINT!    It was older paint, so it was apparent that those cabinets had been painted long ago - BRIGHT! YELLOW!

I began to stripping.  It was tedious.  I burned my hand 3,000 times. I burned the wall a few    times too. The saving grace: the lower walls had not been washed down or sanded prior to a couple of those coats of paint.  Once you got a piece started, you could peel that paint off in sheets.  I finally got down to the bottom layer.  It was a warm white - amazingly close to what we had picked for the lower color.

Next step, removing cabinets.

The kitchen after (most) of the lower paint had been stripped off.

We tore those upper cabinets down one Friday night.  We had both worked all day and we should not have been wielding hammers in close proximity to one another.  The good news was we took two walls of upper cabinets down in one night and didn’t kill or maime each other.  The lower cabinets soon followed, except for the cabinet that housed the sink.

Coming next:  hidden treasure, the search for the perfect yellow paint, and the trouble with plaster.

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