January 23, 2012

The Story Behind the Latest Project

Remember the back door we put in three years ago? Well, it leaks, and has leaked probably since the very beginning. The first time it happened, I told Hubby he put the door in wrong. I know, I know. It was the wrong thing to say and I knew it the minute it came out of my mouth. So naturally, he dug in his heels and refused to even talk about redoing it. Eventually though, he relented and agreed to redo it when we put on the dining room addition. And then that kept getting put off.

As time went by, I just stuck a towel in front of the door every time it rained and tried to keep the water from spreading. That didn't really work though because the water ran down the grooves between the tile. After a heavy rain, there was a musty, wet-wood smell, and after being gone from the house for even a short weekend, a strong, moldy smell hit me when I walked in the door, and the smell inside the bar cabinet was also really strong. But the last straw was right before Christmas. While mopping the floor, I saw something that looked like marshmallow cream growing between the cabinet base and shoe molding. It was a fungus, the indoor version of toadstools I suppose.

So at a time when I should have been baking, shopping, and cleaning house, I was on a mission to find the mold and get it out.

Since the bar section was a separate unit, I thought I might be able to just unscrew it from the wall, pull it out, and put a couple of legs under the bar until we did the big remodel. But of course, nothing is ever as easy as I think it should be. The cabinets were screwed into place from the top before the counter was put on, and no other way to get to the screws. On to Plan B, if only there was a Plan B.

So I did the next best thing, and decided to start the kitchen remodel. We had never finished the kitchen fifteen years ago. After ripping off the wallpaper, I just slapped some paint on it to cover the rips and gouges in the sheetrock and we planned to do walls and trim when we did the addition. The addition that never happened.

This is what happened next.






And the bar cabinet? When we finally got it out, this is what we found.

The cabinet had a stack of drawers on the front side, and a single door on the back side, under the bar. The damage was contained to the back side next to the wall, and the base. That was good because I wanted to rebuild the cabinet, reusing the drawer stack and making a pullout with part of the carcass that had been in the corner.

It didn't take long to cut off the damaged side of the cabinet, pull off the base and rebuild it. Then I started stripping. I finished that this afternoon and tomorrow I start sanding.

The best part is that we were gone for a few days after Christmas, and when we walked in the door, the house smelled fresh and clean. Yes!

So now you know what I've been doing lately.


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2 comments:

  1. Very nice .. your kitchen is beautiful even without a remodel!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on getting the mold out. That is nasty stuff.

    ReplyDelete

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