What goes up, must come down.

 Kitchen is ripped out. Loads of surprises found along the way, and I'm stinkin' tired.

We discovered the source of the funky smell in the cabinets -- mold! Everywhere! This is the result of a kitchen drain pipe that was only loosely attached until we had a flood in our living room last summer, and a water line for the fridge that was never completely shut off. Both were fixed once we got the house (the latter was our very first fix-it project for the house; we walked into our house as homeowners for the first time and found a giant puddle in the corner of the kitchen. It was a wonderful welcome to home-ownership . . .)

The new cabinets are hung, walls are painted, but since there is still more to do, I'm not going to show you those pictures yet. 

Drywall that's never seen the light of day! And also Sam, who volunteered to help for two days in a row. 
He even stayed to help muck out the mold and rotted sub-floor. Thankful for great friends.

Taking out the tile I've always hated!

Who would have thought that mucking out houses after Katrina would prepare us to fix our kitchen? This was the surprise find that was throughout the kitchen. None of the work we did on the sub-floor or drywall was planned at all, but at least we now have a mold free kitchen!

Another view of the nastiness -- can't believe we've lived with this for a year!

The damage extended as far as there were cabinets. From the entryway you see to the other side of the wall, all of that had to be removed to the floor boards. We started with just one chisel, and I quickly got sent to Home Depot to get more!

Tar paper = floor boards! Praise God they were sound and untouched by the water damage!

That's my "I hate mold in my kitchen" face.

SO GROSS! Glad it's gone!

. . . but not enough to remove the nasty linoleum and find the mold growing rampant in the kitchen.
Apparently we love Julie more.

We found three different vinyl tiles, at least three different kinds of wallpaper and four different paint colors in the kitchen. Apparently our kitchen has had quite the life in it's 60 years. Lots of stories, I'm sure.

Stay tuned for more!