tearing out old cabinets

today I managed to remove the nails holding the remains of the long upper cabinet in place that was over the fridge and stove. so the cabinet came straight down to rest on the countertop, but it wouldn't slide out!




so I took the oscillating tool and cut it in two pieces. then it came free and I hauled it out to the garage.

the hole where the exhaust hood vent pipe went



I managed to get the old countertop piece off the drawer cabinet between the stove and fridge.


it was only glued in place! no screws. a couple whacks with the hammer and it was free.


the piece of countertop over the stove was also glued to the wall, and came off easily


unfortunately that cabinet is nailed to the wall.


i am having a hell of a time getting these nails out. the heads are well buried in the wood, and my pry bars are either too big or too small. after some googling i discovered something called a cats paw or a nail puller. you pound the end with the hammer and it digs into the wood enough to grab the nail head so you can then pull it out.

i need to ask dad if he has one or else go buy one.

--dad didnt have one so I bought one. ten bucks. I also bought a screwdriver version for five bucks and that one works better. the nail puller thing doesnt seem to have a wide enough gap to go around the nails I'm having to pull out. its frustrating. I'm going to return it/exchange it for the slightly bigger version I saw in the store.

first lower cabinet free


uneven flooring under the first cabinet


had to remove an outlet before removing the next countertop


next bit of countertop removed between the stove and the tall cabinet.


there were five nails in that cabinet, and two of them were in the same place, bend over, heads cut off. especially irritating to remove. I had to go dig out my vice grips. there were also three screws going from the tall cabinet over into the edge of the countertop. and I'm left wondering if the idiot who built and installed these cabinets had SCREWS available to him to use, why on earth did he use NAILS?!!?


heidi investigating the floor underneath the second removed lower cabinet


there were apparently some really good smells there


second lower cabinet gone, uneven flooring there as well


I carried the skinny cabinet with all the drawers downstairs and put the drawers back in. I carried the two skinny countertop pieces down, but my first attempt at carrying them left a big bruise on my inner upper arm from a sharp edge on the part that goes up the wall. so I had to set them back down and find a different way to carry them (heavier countertop sides to my chest, lighter wall side down in my hands. the other skinny cabinet needs to go downstairs but I'm wiped out.

second set of cabinets purchased

went with dad to ikea today. he bought the second half of the cabinets, and paid for them to be delivered. 117 parts.

I didnt think to bring my datebook so the date they scheduled the delivery for didnt work. its the date I have my dentist appointment and its a bitch to reschedule those. it definitely wasnt fun trying to reschedule the ikea delivery, but got it changed to the following day.

assembling cabinets and super sore

Thursday and Friday (24th and 25th) I woke up super sore. I was glad to go swimming on Thursday and work out the worst of the kinks in my arms and shoulders. Friday I went to the library and moved enough to work the stiffness out.

Saturday I assembled two more cabinets and the missing drawer front arrived so I assembled the 12th and final drawer (for this side of the kitchen).

missing drawer front


i'm disappointed that the drawer sides dont come all the way up, and that i didnt realize that.


i opted to buy the glass sides so at least there would be sides to the tall drawer. they're optional. without them the white bar would still be there but it would be open and things would fall out.


the missing door arrived with the missing drawer front


puppy *helped* with assembly


upper cabinet


puppy *helped* a lot






another upper cabinet


sunday was a family wedding.

today (monday) I assembled the last upper cabinet, the over the fridge one.


the back bedroom is FULL, back to front with cabinets


then I started disassembling the long upper cabinet over the stove and fridge. i cut it apart with the oscillating saw blade and pulled it out piece by piece, including the vent pipe from the ceiling to where the exhaust fan used to be. the bottom and front and middle shelf are gone. the ends, top, and backboard are still up there. I need to figure out how it's attached so i can get it out.




made a big sawdust mess. fit some parts of what I cut away in the trash can. its trash night so I need to figure out what to do with all that damn cardboard from the new cabinets. it wont all fit.

tomorrow dad and I go to ikea to order the rest of the cabinets. I've been working on figuring out countertops.

knocked out a bunch more cabinets

woke up SO sore this morning. hands, wrists, arms, shoulders. muscles not used to being used.

today I put together the 4 drawers for the second base cabinet (assembled yesterday).

I put together 3 out of 4 drawers for the third base cabinet. the 4th drawer is waiting on its drawer-front to arrive before I assemble that one. (one drawer-front and one cabinet door had to be shipped out/weren't in stock.) then I put together that base cabinet. so the three base cabinets and 11 out of 12 drawers are assembled and ready to install.

then I assembled two of the upper cabinets. (one with the missing door). and matched their shelves up.

there are still three upper cabinets left to assemble.

I need to start taking down the old cabinets. its gonna get messy so I keep putting it off. but the new stuff cant go in til the old stuff is gone.

dad suggested we get the second half of the kitchen delivered. we'll go in next week and finish the order.

making space for the drawers


four drawers here for the second base cabinet


see? four.


the skinny 18" drawer and drawer front boxes. gotta make sure you get the part numbers right. there are a lot of boxes the same size with different numbers.


third base cabinet assembled


three out of the four drawers for that third cabinet (fourth one is missing its drawer front)


two of the upper cabinets and their door and shelves (one missing door)

putting cabinets and drawers together

I've started putting cabinets together, starting with the last ones we'll need for the fridge/stove side, and stashing them in the spare bedroom so that the last ones needed are farthest back, and first ones needed will be up front. the cabinets were easy to assemble. the drawers ended up posing a much bigger challenge. the instructions just werent clear enough.

each drawer is assembled differently.

-the top inner/hidden drawer has a different smaller drawer front, so the drawer front screws go in one location.
-the top outer drawer has the same drawer as the inner/hidden drawer, but a normal drawer front. so the screws go in that drawer front in another location.
-the middle drawer is a different drawer from the top and hidden drawers, with the same drawer front as the top/normal drawer. so those screws are again in a different position.
-and the bottom drawer is the same drawer as the middle, same drawer front as the middle and top, but being located on the bottom of the cabinet needs the drawer front screws in a different location.

I had to go on youtube and watch multiple videos to get clarity on how to *follow* the wordless ikea drawer assembly instructions to get each drawer put together correctly. and I decided to follow someones idea to label each drawer with top/middle/bottom sticky notes so I dont screw it up when its time to put the drawer slides on and all the drawers in place in the cabinets. from looking around online, it seems like people dont screw the drawer slides into the cabinets until after the cabinets are in place in the kitchen. which makes sense. tilt the cabinet even slightly and the slides roll out and poke you in the legs or trip you. (this happened when I assembled my ikea bed with drawers. I tripped on drawer slides and got stabbed in the legs multiple times. there was lots of swearing, and I'd like to not do that again.)

so far I've got two base cabinets and 4 drawers (from one cabinet) put together. I'm having a little trouble making room for all these drawers. they dont stack nicely. I think I'm gonna run out of room in the back room. maybe I should have just started on the upper cabinets and left the lowers until later.

I'm also panicking that we should go back to ikea ASAP and get the rest of the kitchen because it'll be too crowded with people trying to squeak out at the last moments of the kitchen sale, and ikea will run out of the kitchen parts I need. because the sale only goes thru Nov 11 and the employees said the later it gets in the sale, the more people come in. but I'm not sure its reasonable to panic about this. on the other hand, its only like two weeks left in the sale, so maybe it is? ah the joys of panic.

I also switched from using a screwdriver to using the drill to put the screws in. its just too hard on my hands, too many screws. but I might need to pick up a new phillips head bit. mine is looking a bit worn down and I dont want to be stripping all these new screws in my cabinets.

first two cabinets


drawers


drawer front and hardware


theres three holes but you only use two of them


which two you use is very important and changes with the different drawers


this is where I needed online help. once it was pointed out I was like 'DOH!' how obvious! but I didnt see it until I had help. the manuals give you two pictures. the first one goes with the instructions that follow directly below. the second picture refers you to a page farther on in the manual. and if the second picture isnt right either, still go to that page referenced. there is often another set of pictures referring you on to another page even farther in the manual.


and on those pages the different screw and hardware locations is very subtle

more planning and buying the first half of the kitchen

I worked on finalizing my kitchen plans, and made a run to ikea to sort out my list of questions. ikea is about 40-45 minutes away from me during normal traffic. and I'm only willing to drive there when I can get both there and back avoiding rush hour. because rush hour will turn it to a 2 hour drive or more.

so after I got the plans finalized, I had to empty out all my cabinets on one side of my kitchen. to avoid ikea's high delivery charge ($99) we're picking it up with dads truck and hauling it home ourselves. so my kitchen plans are divided into 3 loads. fridge/stove side which has the least amount of cabinets. then the sink side will be divided into two loads (uppers and lowers) because its more cabinets, and wouldnt fit in dads truck in one load.

then it took three days for me to sort and pack away enough stuff from both sides of the kitchen to relocate the necessary things from the stove/fridge side over to the sink side. I packed away 9 boxes of kitchen stuff. it was a lot of work. I ended up also clearing out my dining room hutch of the lesser used stuff so i could put more stuff over there.

I moved all those boxes downstairs. I had thought to store them to the back bedroom, but theres too many of them. I need that space for staging of new cabinets.

ikea is having their 10% off kitchen cabinet sale right now. so dad took us to ikea and we bought the first load of cabinets and hauled them home. it filled his truck bed. 2 parts (1 drawer front and 1 door) werent in stock and were arranged to be shipped out to me for $9 so I wouldnt have to drive back in and pick them up.

cabinet boxes and drawer boxes


drawer fronts and shelves


the large refrigerator panel and cabinet doors and end panels

kitchen planning

I've been playing with ikeas kitchen planning software for two years now. I find it grand fun to try it this way or try it that way. you can save at least 12 different plan ideas, probably more! but thats the most I kept saved. as I'd make new plans I'd erase the ones I no longer wanted. the ikea plans tell you the cost for that set of plans, and has an inventory list of all the different parts.

I started out taking all the measurements of my existing kitchen and drawing them up by hand so I knew what i was dealing with. room size, door and window locations, all that good stuff.


this shows the ikea version of my existing kitchen, as best as I could mock it up with what sizes of cabinets they had to choose from. (overhead view)


and my very first ikea kitchen plan. (overhead view)


a variation near the end of planning, where I planned to put the microwave and toaster oven in those open shelves below the upper cabinets on the left.


final plans, fridge side. I decided an open shelf under the upper cabinets on the left would work better than closed in ikea boxes. the door on the left is the living room, the door to the turtle room is on the right. the kitchen is open to the dining room on the left side.


final plans, sink side. the door to the left is the turtle room. the door on the right is the sliding door to the porch. there is no actual wall to the right, its open to the dining room.


view of the sink side from the dining room, showing how the only corner cabinet will be facing the dining room, so I dont have to do a lazy susan or actual corner cabinet. and there will be no cabinets over the peninsula in the new plans (unlike the existing plans where those cabinets block out a lot of light).


reminder photos of the existing kitchen