New Walls and a Temporary Utility Room

After the trenching concrete set up, the interior walls got their drywall on and ended their nakedness (nude-osity?) The kitchen wall went up first and plumbing was added for the sink and dishwasher since they are moving to that wall.

We used that space to test various color samples for the room. The "Home Despot" actually has a great thing with the little 8oz sample/touch-up size paint options. Totally worth a couple of bucks to see what you are getting into.

It is funny how easy adding outlets to the kitchen has been since we had all sorts of exposed wall and our recent electrical upgrade had removed all (well actually most) doubts about our wiring. I bet my kitchen now has more outlets than my grandmother's whole house did. New code is that any span of 12 inches of kitchen counter space has to have a GFI (Ground Fault Interrupt) outlet. I'm okay with the GFI part but the "every 12 inches" part sort of rubs me the wrong way. What if I don't want them? It is my house right? So what if it is practical and makes sense... I just find myself chafing more and more at being told what I have to do in my own house. </soapbox>

Okay, so with the old pantry now sealed off, part of our living room wall needed to come down so that we could get into what will become our 3/4 bath. It was a little weird to come home and see a hole where a wall had been every day for that I came home for the last 12 years. Cool, but a little disconcerting. Eventually this will be the "Crawfish Memorial Hallway and Kitchen Bypass." I was going to call it the Intercounty Connector but that would have added 50 years and $2.5 billion to the project.

The bathroom door will be along the wall of the hallway. Where the dryer (the grey box on the left) is located right now will be the doorway to the utility room when the addition is built. Where the washer is (the white box on the right) will eventually be the 3/4 bathroom. The washer and dryer will ultimately end up on the other side of that widow in the addition.


That window brings up something interesting. It used to be an outside door and was turned into a window. Now we are going to turn it into a full wall. When the drywall inside the pantry was removed, we realized that that wall that was put up probably in the last 25 or 30 years to create that space. While it made the dining room smaller it was a pretty decent idea and was done well. It was interesting to see that those interior walls are made out of 2x3's instead of 2x4's. Sad that that counts as "interesting" at this point, but what can I say, these renovations turn into a bit of an archaeological dig every so often. You gotta take joy where you can find it.

A new light and an exhaust fan were installed in the 3/4 bath and the base for the shower was placed and then the plumbing run so that the inspection could take place. It did. No problems. So far inspectors who have come on site have been very professional and direct. They don't seem to be in the business of trying to prolong this experience but rather are just making sure it is done properly. Sounds good to me.

The bathroom now goes into more of a holding pattern because we can use it as a utility room until the addition is built. (There is a "hold it" and bathroom joke in there somewhere...) Some wall board may go up as time permits, but there is no real need to do anything else on it at this point. It would just be in the way of the washing machine.


Next step... new kitchen cabinets.