GREEN LIGHT!

I mentioned in a previous post that my kitchen renovation project had stalled due to the reservations of "a fellow unnamed resident of the house". Well the kitchen renovation gods must have heard my prayers because I received the green light to move ahead with my project!

Hubs was leaving town for a few days and my dad was coming over to help me with my kitchen! Our plan was to attack the drop down ceiling from the stairway landing above and to tackle the wall I had started to strip of paneling a year ago. It was my goal to have the drop down ceiling drywalled over by the end of the weekend.

About ten years ago I attempted a plumbing project in the kitchen which ended up—long story short—causing the toilet to explode and water to come down to the kitchen through the ceiling from the bathroom above (hence the reason why I am banned from plumbing project to this day). The water entered the kitchen through the drop down ceiling/stairway landing shown here. Naturally Hubs and I were concerned about mold being behind the paneling, and there was no telling what condition the plaster that surely encased it would be in!

The drop down ceiling is a landing for the stairway above

While I waited for my dad to arrive, I began to rip down paneling from the wall I started last year. Imagine my surprise when I found a void in the wall! What on earth is this? It only spans between the studs and was trimmed out with wood moulding at one time.

What the...??!?

What used to be here?

Dad arrived shortly thereafter and we started to work on the ceiling. The plaster was in better condition than I expected, and there was no black mold—Hooray! Despite our findings, we decided that we'd knock down the plaster on the drop down ceiling rather than patch it and put up some drywall instead. We were concerned about the plaster eventually failing.

Well, well… looks as if someone else has also had an issue with flooding from upstairs in the history of this house… Meanwhile, here's Dad busting up plaster. What a mess! I love this!! PROGRESS!!!

And... VOILA!! We've got DRYWALL installed!!!

And DRYWALL MUD!!

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was that this was happening!