Gus and I bought our first house together in October 2016. It's a century-old Victorian home, nestled in a side street of Humboldt Park, Chicago. It's certainly not fancy by any means. But it has a little backyard for Gus to plant a garden, a two-car garage for me to store my tools, and enough space for both our families to visit for as long as they'd like. In short, we love it, and we're so happy to be living here.
I think it was a month after we moved in that I told Gus that I wanted to tear the kitchen apart. And then I just did it. Although the house was nice enough, there was no air conditioning on the 2nd floor, the kitchen was outdated, and every room needed a fresh coat of paint. Even now, nearly a year and a half after buying the house, it seems like our punch list only keeps getting longer. But we actually love it. I mentioned it in earlier posts, but I'm an activator and Gus is a planner.
The first thing I wanted to destroy was this purple wall separating the kitchen from the dining room. You can't tell from the picture, but the opening between those two rooms was only a narrow 2 and a half feet. Something about this wall made the entire first floor feel disconnected and smaller. So I called an architect, got his blessing, and started taking down the wall.
Here's the other side of the wall. The kitchen just felt like it had a lot of empty space with no practical use. The prior owners put a second table in the very middle of the kitchen simply to avoid the awkwardness. But wait, there's more....
The stove and sink are located in the very back wall of the kitchen. So whenever you're cooking and wanting to serve people in the dining room, it feels like you have to trek across this wide open space. But maybe the most difficult thing to deal with was this little alcove - a tiny, narrow place,which almost felt like a completely separate room where the fridge was also coincidentally located.
I think now you can see why I arrived at the conclusion that I needed to have a demo day. Now, regarding Demo, I do have a good tip to provide. I actually posted pictures of our cabinets and appliances on Craigslist for FREE. I put up the very same pictures I'm sharing here with you now, and asked that the person simply provide me with all their social media handles (to prove they aren't a murderer), and then come by and take it away themselves. It made me feel good to know that at least all these useful pieces were going to another good home. The guy who picked it all up was super nice too. He was building a suite for his mom-in-law to live. I was saving him a lot of money, and he was saving me time. Fair trade :)
I think the most painful part of the demo was actually ripping up the floors. I did it all by hand, between a
crowbar and a
sledge hammer.
This was the picture we took from Day 1 of the Demo.
Even though we are already finished with this project, I thought it would be nice to share our journey with you. I'll end this article with the reality that the entire project took a little over a year to finish. That's right. I made Gus live in Dust and Dirt for over a full year. And he barely complained. If that's not love, what is?
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