Kitchen Progress

A Gaping Hole

     After a couple of hours work and clean up time this is what we have now.  The hole is about 64" x 100" and took a while to open up.  After removing the existing fluorescent fixtures (3) the final piece of sheet rock was taken down.  The amount of bracing and blocking they put into this structure was crazy!  My cat's claw and crowbars worked overtime to get rid of it all.  Much of the backing was lower than the bottom of the rafters but I guess they didn't care about that since it was inside of the light box.  The floors are fairly clean with the steam mop but will need lots of TLC when the entire project is done.  That drywall dust even got between the seams of the laminate floor.
     I had a message from Ralph Bagnall  who encouraged me to check out LED bulbs.  We did and will probably go with them in spite of the additional added up front cost.  Bought a CFL lamp to test and it's really very bright and glaring.  That, combined with the warm up period is having us consider the LED's.
     Once the ceiling was removed and things cleaned up, Diane and I measured all of the features and made the floor plan.  It was drawn in 1/2 scale and here's the progression:

  The initial plan was drawn on to graph paper and then copied, upper left drawing.
Next the counters and upper cabinets were located, upper right drawing.
This was followed by locating the rafters and approximate location of the ductwork that we'll need to work around, bottom left drawing.
And the final plan is the colored version on the lower right.











     Now it's time to load up the truck with all of the destruction debris and haul it off to the transfer station in Henderson.  We plan to stop at the Bulb Man to get their advice on placement and number of fixtures we'll need to complete this phase of the project.