bye-bye built-in

Still playing sooooo much catch-up... our kitchen is in a completely different place now and we are seeing the light at the end of the 2-month tunnel.  It's hard for me not to skip ahead and show you how things are progressing, but I'm trying to be patient so every step gets chronicled (really more for us than for you...)

Every day we lose more of our kitchen.  It was time to tell our built-in bye-bye.  It serves as our pantry, so that meant taking everything out and finding a flat, clean surface (which is hard to find around here these days) to hold it all temporarily.  In case you don't know, I love to cook and we LOVE to eat - who am I kidding... all of you know that.  So naturally, we have a lot of food, oils, spices, etc...

I tried pulling this beast out by myself, very difficult because it's really heavy and sits below the level of the wood floor so it has to be sort of pried up and out..  Coincidentally, as I'm in the middle of this, our cabinet-makers called to say they wanted to come remeasure this space to be sure of everything before they started building the cabinet for it.  So they said they'd come the next day and take it out for me and measure.  They're so nice! 

Rudy showed up to remove the cabinet and measure.  We just thought we had a lot of tools...  he had a lot more tools at his disposal created for things like this, which made it considerably easier.

Despite all the tools, it was still quite a task and we worked really hard not to mess anything up.  I'm hoping we can reuse this piece.  I want to add framing around the unfinished built-in part so it can be a stand-alone entertainment center/bookcase of sorts that I think will go well in the office once sanded down and refinished or painted.

So we took off the face and all the doors and drawers.  We took out all the nails and staples and runners... very tedious, but I learned some new tricks of the trade.

Then once we got it out of its cubby, we laid it on its back and put the face back on and reattached the drawers.  I told him not to put the doors on because I'll have to take them off again eventually if/when we get around to refinishing it.  Again, these are all things that the Casianos don't really have to do.  We're not paying them for any demo work.  Rudy could have just peaced out once he got it out and got his measurements, but they go the extra mile to take care of you.  Plus they're pretty impressed that I'm so interested to learn and willing to get my hands dirty, which makes me feel good :)  Just another reminder that we made a good choice to go with the local guys.

Lonely little alcove... notice the dual purpose windowsill.

Our new and not-so-improved pantry.