Can I be the GC of my own renovation? I pondered this for approximately 30 seconds before coming to a resounding “NO”. I turned to a friend of mine that has flipped dozens of properties, thinking that he might take the lead on the project. Due to time constraints, he had to pass, and then directed me towards Kevin Seidl. Kevin has a small but mighty crew that has (so far) done excellent work.

We are currently in the second week of demolition. In order to make the floor plan a bit more functional and open, we had a few walls that needed to come down. The most obvious being the removal of the wall between the kitchen & dining room.

When entertaining, no matter how many times we invite people to adjourn to the living room, the kitchen is where the action is. Knowing this, and given my love of cooking, the kitchen/dining layout had to be changed.

Obviously, one cannot just go around removing walls willy nilly. Structural concerns, along with a host of other issues, must be addressed. One thing is certain, they don’t build ’em like they used to.

You might assume that these walls would simply be lath and plaster. You’d be wrong. There is plaster involved. There are, what appear to be, plaster block walls, a great deal of concrete and wire mesh.

One of the contractors, Steve, has been crowned “The Destroyer”. Just take a look at some of his handy work!

Wall between kitchen & dining room.

Gone!

We also wanted to create a passthrough from the living room to the kitchen. This passthrough is flanked by the 1/2 bath and front entry closet. Opening this up will help create a nice flow.

The master bedroom also had some demo needed. Originally, there were 2 closets that met at a right angle in the corner, leaving a good deal of “dead space”. By tearing out a couple of the closet walls, we will be able to make a corner walk-in closet.

Now, on to the master bathroom. It is on the small side. It will still be on the small side. However, we are changing the walls up a bit in order to match the adjacent closet and create a larger vanity area. All of the tile will need to be replaced. Let’s just say that it has been a challenge to get it off of the walls.

Lots of rubble removal happening this week. Stay tuned for the kitchen layout blog!