who wants popcorn?

Like I said, we're not big on sitting down and laying out plans.  So when we get tired of talking, we work on all the demo that needs to be done.  As you can see in the photos below, we have lovely popcorn ceilings.  We've already removed some of it - in our 2 bathrooms when we redid those rooms and then in the living room and entryway - somewhat unintentionally.  (We weren't really ready to tackle such a large space, but when Chris fell through the ceiling while installing a radiant barrier in the attic, we decided since we were patching the ceiling anyway, we may as well de-popcorn.)  If you've never done this before, consider yourself blessed.  It's such a mess.  And it gets in your lungs, mouth, eyes, and anywhere else you can imagine.  Awesome.

Cover everything up and spray it with a hose.

Let it soak a minute then make it snow!  We used a straight-edge hoe when we did the living room.  But you still have to go back over it with a paint scraper/drywall blade to clean it up.  We've learned it's better just to use a scraper the whole time.  It's a little more tedious on the front end, but when all said and done it saves time and does less damage to the drywall.

Beautiful, popcorn-free ceilings.  Still have to patch, sand, smooth, texture, paint...

day 1: destruction

Generally... christyn = planner.  chris = not planner. 
But in this situation, the massiveness of the project is so daunting that neither of us want to sit down and make the ten million decisions that need to be made before we proceed.  All we really want to do is jump in, start tearing things apart, and get our hands dirty.  So that's what we do.

We need to break into the peninsula pony wall anyway to take a look at the pipes, drainage, and vent.  So we start by removing our dishwasher (a sweet new Bosch we bought several months ago) and then remove the paneling behind the sink.  Once finished, we attack the hanging cabinets that are the source of all this trouble.

At this point Chris gives us more credit than we deserve.  He thinks that somehow we can unscrew this entire upper cabinet piece from the ceiling and bring it down, just the two of us, without it crashing down and destroying everything in its path (including body parts).  It takes some major convincing from my end for him to realize that despite my super-human strength, I can't hold up the entire cabinet while he has the drill in one hand, taking out the final screw, supporting the other side with his free hand.  Our neighbor Steve comes over to help us lower the cabinet.  Day 1 disaster avoided.

Cabinets down. Drill battery dies before we can attack the soffit.  (Next stop: Sears for a new lithium-ion Craftsman 19.2volt battery... they last so much longer, are lighter... well worth the extra expense.  Good buy.)

Cute.

Wow... this openness is even better than we ever imagined.  Too bad we don't have enough cabinets or storage space, otherwise we could just stop here.

Soffit is down now.  Beautiful, beautiful open room.

the basic plan

Remember our floor plan from before?  Focus on that rectangle at the top; that's where all the change will occur.

Current kitchen layout.  That dotted line is the peninsula that has to go.

First draft of our future kitchen layout.  Florida turns into Hawaii (peninsula turns into an island).  My ideal kitchen has the sink below a window so you can look outside, but since that's not really an option, the best alternative is on the island facing the backyard windows.  Double oven leaves left wall next to range to provide more counter space, lands on back wall which turns into a bank of counters/cabinets.

This is flashing forward, but we spent several hours designing cabinets at Lowes with Bernie, who was extremely nice.  They're not allowed to give you the dimensions from the CAD or anything, but he gave us the renderings of the cabinets themselves.  So this is a more professional idea of our hopeful floor plan.

kitchen before

Here's a look at our kitchen "before".

*Disclaimer: I would like to take a moment to note that despite all these things I'm saying I dislike about our kitchen and other areas of our house that we've changed or plan to change, we really love our home.  Every day we say how much we love our house and our yard and our neighborhood, etc.  We just want to make some improvements to make it more comfortable, more updated, and more "ours".  I just wanted to put that out there for the record so yall don't think I'm some snob who thinks she's too good for our 1971 home.  Bueno.

View of the kitchen from the laundry room/nook area.  Flourescent light has to go, along with those soffits above the cabinets on either side. The upper cabinets above the peninsula are the main thing we wanted gone, but just tearing those down wouldn't provide enough cabinet space.  Also this is the only counterspace other than the small  1x2 area next to the range. We've already taken out the dishwasher to look at plumbing.  We'll have to move the drain and vent for our new plan.

View of the dining area where the kitchen will grow into.  Check out those sweet stools - cheap craigslist buy - good job Chris!  If you look closely you can see we've already started tearing out the paneling on the peninsula bar. (And you can catch a glimpse of our now-red entryway.)

Here's a great view of the boob kitchen from the dining room table.  We had to rotate the table against the wall, so now it's perpendicular to the back wall/window.  It's not as ideal as being centered nicely on the window, but it has to move that way to accommodate a bigger kitchen. It also means the can recessed lights Chris installed are no longer directly above it... but all of our lighting will have to change anyways :)

welcome to 10526 milldale street

Here's a look at Milldale in early 2010, before and right after we moved in.  So you will have an idea of what we're working with.

View from the front with Mr. Schorlemer, the former owner

View from the back, pre-garden, outdoor shower, landscaping, etc.

Here's a very rough and very not-to-scale floorplan.  The areas we're focusing on are the 2 "rooms" at the top.  The house was designed with a formal dining room connected to the kitchen with a pocket door, but it's carpeted and small and really part of the carpeted living area, which was used more as a den before. So we just made that one large living room and turned the original "living area" into our dining room, which has hardwood floors along with the kitchen and entry.  Our table sits by the back windows, but you can see where I've labeled the wasted space that this leaves behind.  This is the area we'll grow our kitchen into.

Here's a view of the entry hall, including our cute realtor (and friend) Ms. Amy Stoy, now Mrs. Amy Falkenberg.  We've redone the entry since then - the 1970s spindles came down, we painted it red, and put a tiffany-style light fixture in.  It's now a nice, striking entry.

To the left of the entry is our living area, which we're standing in in this photo, looking at the original formal dining room, complete with lovely brass chandelier.  It's gone, as are the super thick linen curtains. The doorway you can see to the right is a pocket door into the galley kitchen.

Continuing the tour... the doorway to the left is the pocket door we just walked through.  This is one side of the kitchen - double oven, gas range, microwave/vent, and the gap to the right is the fridge. Two things I don't personally prefer in kitchens - microwaves above cooktops and a wall or cabinet on the side of the range that doesn't allow pot/pan handles to extend.  Notice both are here.  Also notice lack of counter space.

Here's the other side of the kitchen.  Chris calls it the "boob kitchen" because when you're in the dining room talking to someone in the kitchen, that's the only part of their body you can see.  Not such a nice name for it, but you have to admit it clearly describes the annoyance of the layout.  This is our primary issue regarding our kitchen - the inability to visit when we're entertaining and the lack of openness.

Looking from the galley kitchen to the backyard is this little kitchen  nook.  We have a free-standing buffet there for our cappuccino maker and toaster oven.  To the right is the door to the backyard and the built-in on the left is our pantry and storage area. Just to the left of that, before you get to the fridge and the kitchen area we're standing in is the door to the laundry room, then garage beyond.

Here's the former living room, which is now our dining room, looking from the back door area toward the entry.  And there's my Pops in the background, checking out the furnace of course, before we signed the dotted line to buy.  We got rid of the ceiling fan to open it up and put in recessed lights above the table. To the right are the cabinets of the boob kitchen.

So that just about sums up the layout of the main area we'll be focusing on.

Next up: our new kitchen blueprint (aka chicken scratch on graph paper) and photos of the kitchen before the demolition began.

beginning... again

So I set this blog up over a year ago, fully intending to post pictures of home renovations, our family and friends, travel, etc... as you can see from my first test post below.  And I really only set it up because I had this very clever idea to call our blog "The Baer Necessities" But unfortunately someone else was just as clever and it was already taken.  So being a big fan of alliteration and since we were newlyweds and all I went with Baer Beginnings, and I suppose it fits considering we really are always starting something new here at Milldale.

In fact, more often than not we're in the middle of several "somethings new". But our latest something is our biggest (and most expensive) something to date, so we're trying to stay focused on it (oh, and our chicken coop, and our garden, and our trip to Germany, and our yard... and our jobs.) We've just begun the process of renovating our galley kitchen which we've been planning to redo since we moved in back in March of 2010.  So here we are almost 2 years later actually getting started on the kitchen... and the blog.

I have no false hopes of winning any awards with the creativity or content of Baer Beginnings, and it's not likely that HGTV will be looking to sign a book deal with us when we're done. You'll probably actually see more "what not to dos" than anything. This blog really has 3 purposes: (1) To share with friends and family what's going on at 10526 Milldale so you can see our progress [hopefully] along the way. (2) To let you see how much fun this is so you'll want to come help out! (3) To let you see how miserable this is so you'll feel sorry for us and want to come help out.

So if you'd like to follow along - for any of those above mentioned reasons or just because you're looking for distractions from your day job - join us on this long, fun?, stressful, and more-expensive-than-we'd-like journey.

Prost!