Destroying the Kitchen in Order to Save It

Our kitchen was not awful. The cabinets were starting to show their age and the partcle board shelves were starting to sag. The floor was a vinyl sheet that had seen better days and the counter top was pretty much shot. On the plus side, we painted it pretty happy colors a few years ago and the toaster oven works great. Wait... now that I think about it our kitchen was shot.

Also, there was some weirdness to it.

Mainly:

• The kitchen was shaped like a giant "L" with the lower leg being a pantry.
• Our washing machine was behind enormous sliding steel doors.
• The dryer was around the corner in the pantry and a good 20 ft from the washer.
• The refrigerator was around the corner as well.

Okay, this may be hard to visualize so here is the general layout of our kitchen at the beginning of the project and the hoped for general layout of the kitchen at the end of the project. (BTY, not to scale. The addition will be much deeper that I showed below and there will be another room to the right of the utility room.)

So we are destroying the kitchen while we wait on the permits for the addition. We decided that with drains and water supplies being put into the future 3/4 bath, we could use it as a temporary utility room until the addition was completed.

The steel doors. The old hot water heater used to live ther as well	The pantry Full o' stuff as usual

The first step was to clear everything out of the pantry and from behind the steel doors (Wasn't "Behind the Steel Door" a 70's movie... Oh. Wait. Never mind.) Once everything was gone the real destruction could begin. Since we are on a slab and the drain for the house was basically right next to where the washing machine was, our contractor needed to pull up the vinyl floor and then jack hammer a series of trenches to contain the drains that the new bathroom and utility room will need.

It actually took longer for them to get the floor and adhesives up than it took to jackhammer the slab.

Next to the washing machine with the drain in the wall.	The pantry floor looking a lot like the grand Canyon.

Our house was built in the mid-1950s so it was sorta cool to think that the dirt below the slab hadn't seen the light of day in nearly 60 years.

After the trenches were done, the pipes went in.

The large grey pipe is actually the old vent and was taken out completely. New venting is going in.	The tall pipes in the foreground will actually be drains in the wall that will separate the kitchen and bath.

We got a little lucky in that the drain for the house was in a spot and deep enough to easily allow enough "fall" for the new drains to being installed and flow properly.

Once all the drains were in, the floor was patched with concrete and the contractor started additional framing and electrical work.

One of the things our contractor is doing that was clearly not done during previous renovations in the house, is getting rid of unused parts. That's why the unused vent was removed. He actually hauled out a fair amount of junk from attic that was just parts that were left behind when our furnace was replaced several years ago.

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So we got our official list of uncrossed "T's" and undotted "I's" from our county zoning unit concerning our Special Permit. All in all, they were very minor but since this was an exercise in jumping through hoops for the sake of jumping through hoops, we did just that. I ran the corrections out to their office and made sure that everything that was required was now in and acceptable. I was told that the first part of the process would be done the following week and that our request was now being forwarded to the board that votes on them. We would be getting a letter telling us our hearing date which may be up to three months from now.


We got the letter the other day and it contained a very pleasant surprise... our hearing has been scheduled for next month! Wow. Super cool. Soooooooo, assuming we really are in the home stretch on this, we may actually be two to three months ahead of schedule when the exterior construction starts.


Maybe we will be pretty squared away by Christmas after all. Which is cool because I hear that Santa sometimes skips houses under construction. It is some sort of OSHA requirement for him.

The Tankless Hot Water Heater

So early on we knew we need a new hot water heater (or as George Carlin would have noted - a cold water heater since if the water was already hot, you wouldn't need to heat it.) Our original hot water heater was here when we bought the house in 2000. It was old then so it was a given that had to go. Besides... the Smithsonian wanted it for their "Life Before Columbus" exhibit.

We've decided to redo our kitchen and all the necessary drain and plumbing issues for our new bathroom while we wait on the permits for the actual addition. Our plan is that we can make use of this time and if nothing else get a new kitchen and a temporary utility area where the new bathroom will be while we wait.

So that means the hot water heater needs to be installed in the existing structure. The space it was in was the utility area of our kitchen. That area is about three feet deep and is hidden by very large sliding steel doors. The washing machine is in there and it looks like a boiler used to live there before the furnace was relocated to the attic.

So we ran through these options:

Type	Benefit	Drawback
Gas 70ish Gallon	Not expensive. Easy to install.	Takes up a lot of space. Needs to be vented so as not to interfere with addition roof.
Electric 70ish Gallon	Not expensive. Easy to install.	Takes up a lot of space. Not as efficient as gas.
Gas Tankless	Much smaller. Wall, not floor mounted. Long term efficiency	Needs to be vented so as not to interfere with addition roof. Uncharted territory and more expensive than tank version.
Nuclear Fusion	Virtually unlimited showers.	Large upfront costs. UN Inspectors to bribe. Possible undesirable mutations.

We decided on the Gas Tankless option but then the "where to put it" question needed to be asked and answered.

150 years from now school children will have no idea about the Lincoln/Douglas Debates but they will know every word of the Toy Making Dad vs General Contractor Dad Debate. In short, the contractor wanted to mount the hot water heater in the attic. I wanted to mount it on the wall next to the electrical panel and build a small closet around it and the panel. We respectfully went back and forth for a good 20 minutes before the issue seemed to be resolved with a closet mounter heater. At that point Mrs Toy Making Dad was asked her opinion... and so it was resolved that the hot water heater would reside in the attic. Motion carried.

Ultimately, it was the right decision. It won't be in the way and because of the nature and location of the heater plus the PEX pipes being used, freezing is not an issue and our future bathroom will gain about a foot of extra space.

There are worse attics in the world than mine. It does have our furnace, tons of clothes, a few old computers and hundreds of vacation slides in carousels from a woman I used to sort of worked with 20 years ago that I honestly didn't know so well. (Wait... why do I still have those?)

The plumber and our contractor built a little wall close to the floor and mounted the new hot water heater on it. It has a beautiful set of connectors. They are so beautiful that I weep at the ultimate triumph of form and function that they represent. To gaze at them is to witness perfection. Sadly, they will remain exiled and forgotten in the attic like a misunderstood mutant but kind hearted relative hidden from the authorities. If only they had been in a closet on the first floor where the world could see them... but I digress.

The water is supplied to and taken away from the heater in PEX pipes. PEX is basically super pipe from everything that I've been told and read. It is quiet, easy to install and is "freeze break resistant." If it could do my taxes, I would marry it.

The PEX connects into the rest of the house plumbing and the old hot water heater was removed. With the new hot water heater in place, real destruction on the kitchen can now begin.

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One of the fun bits of this project is finding out about how my house was built. At some point, probably the late 70s or early 80s there was a really well done addition put on the side of the house. The previous owners did an excellent job of matching the brick and roof line so it just makes our house look very long.

One neat side benefit of that addition is that it gave me a look into exactly how my exterior walls are constructed. The mason who will be working on the passages between our existing house and the new addition wanted to know without knocking out bricks how the walls were constructed. I was able to take a look at what was the original exterior wall to the house which is now in my attic. Basically, it was good news. 2x4s, hardboard, a gap and then brick. No cinder block to contend with.

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Did talk to my local civil servants about the status of my special permit request. Only a few tiny details were lacking so they kicked it back to me for corrections.

Although the format of the rejection letter was a bit confusing to the uninitiated, they did patiently explain it to me. Which was nice of them. Maybe in the future they could skip that need by just... oh I don't know... making the letter clear. Just saying.

One of the problems with the plat was that the streets route number was not included. Until this week, I didn't know my street had a route number. Okay fine. Obviously, it is very important or they wouldn't ask for it.

The surveyor had already told us that all plats are rejected for something so his corrections are being done at no additional charge. I now know where to find the little route number signs on my street. There are signs at either end of the block and on a cul-de-sac. The funny thing is, they are clearly wrong. All three are different with the last three numbers being transposed. My street is only one block long.

Well, I guess what is important is that I know my route number so I can tell my local government what it is since there is obviously some doubt on their part.

Hey, we all have a part to play. Happy to help.