The Kitchen. Part IV.

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Halfway point celebratory photo.

Originally, I had planned on just using dry wall as a ceiling. This decision was changed however after a conversation with a few guys at work who really voiced an appreciation for bead board.

Bead board is a set of patterned tongue and groove boards which can be tightly pressed together to create an elegant finished look.

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Tongue and Groove!

We started on the south wall, and slowly moved across the room.

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Beginning the bead board

It went together pretty easily. The hardest part was cutting the holes for the light fixtures.

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We are men of ACTION.

Special thanks to Shamus for bringing his propane nail gun. The thing was essential to the job. Without it, this effort would have been a failure.

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Thank heavens for Shamus’ nail gun

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Making progress

We kind of got into a rhythm. My dad and Jesse would size the pieces and cut them while the rest of us held the pieces in place and nailed them. Occasionally, we’d need to hammer them in, but mostly the tongue groove system worked effortlessly.

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Tony being a champ.

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Almost there!

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Bead board = complete.

With the bead board up, it was time to take a break and start looking at some appliances. I wanted to have a fully operational battle station kitchen as soon as possible.

Tune in tomorrow for appliances and trims!

The Kitchen. Part III

With the old soffit down, it was time to start building.

The plan was to build both soffits out about the same distance. That way we could put lights into each soffit and have a gloriously lit kitchen once all was done.

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The first framework in place.

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Anchoring the soffit

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Dad D taking measurements!

Whoever put up the last soffit did a terrible job. The structure was anchored to loose boards and it was all very haphazardly constructed. We wanted to do a bit better. You’ll notice in this next picture that I’m hammering in a board between joists in order to provide a support bracket. That way we could anchor right at the edge of the soffit, and at the same time better support the drywall that would go on the soffit’s front.

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getting into the work.

Thankfully, House of Rock resident Brian is an electrician. This proved extremely handy as he did all the lighting.

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Brian running the wires for the pendant lights.

Once the soffit was up, we put drywall on the front.

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Drywall – in action!

Tune in tomorrow to watch the bead board ceiling come together!

The Kitchen. Part II.

First task was to tear down the dropped ceiling. One would expect that this wouldn’t be too brutal, but in some areas above the dropped ceiling was plaster – and plaster is nasty nasty stuff.

My roommate Brian and I filled about 30 big black trash bags with plaster and ceiling debris. It was nasty. At its worst there was probably 2-4 inches of ceiling shards covering the entire floor.

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Tools and some very minor debris.

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The joists above as well as plaster remnants on the right.

With the main ceiling down, I had to make a decision on the soffit. The soffit is the part of the wall above a set of cabinets that extends outwards a bit. We had a little one above the range but none above the sink.

After some great advice from friends and family, I decided to tear down and rebuild the soffit as well.

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Tony S. looks forlorn.

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The soffit before the tear down.

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Shamus and Jesse help tear down the soffit.

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Soffitless.

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Tony helps by cleaning up the area above the cabinets.

Finally, we were ready to start building the new soffit. My dad had come down to CT with his van, so thankfully we were able to easily transport the needed 2×4’s back to the House of Rock. At this point, we were ready to begin construction of the new kitchen.

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The Kitchen. Part I.

Back when the winter months were turning summer and my schooling was coming to a close, I decided it was time to rid the kitchen of its dropped ceiling. A simple task? Hardly, though at the time I didn’t truly understand the scope of said project. Thankfully, I had a lot of support from great friends and family, and they helped me turn our kitchen from a kitchen of mock to a kitchen of rock.

This week the features section will guide you through the process.

First, here is the general layout of the kitchen at the House of Rock.

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There’s the beloved peninsula which protrudes at a strange and unique angle from the wall, a handy gas range, and wall mount electric oven and a tiny fridge!

When Jesse and I first purchased the house, my mother excitedly took photographs of each room. Here are two pictures she took of the kitchen, right when we first moved into the house.

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Take note of the dropped ceiling and the old appliances. Here’s a view of the kitchen in use that shows the peninsula dead on.

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Step 1 was pull down the dropped ceiling.
Tune in tomorrow to see the start of the deconstruction