Hands down, our most ambitious DIY project was a house that we bought in Michigan in 2012. It was over 6,000 square feet and I kid you not – every single room in this house needed either remodeling, or gutting then remodeling, or finishing what was already started. My husband, Eric, has been a general contractor for over 20 years (doing construction for over 25 years). He is very gifted. When we bought this huge house, we honestly thought, “We can have it remodeled in 6 months.” Oy vey! Not even close to how everything played out; try years of remodeling while living there with a family. Not ideal at all, lol!

Since this house was so massive and the workload was a mountain range, I will focus on the one room that proved the most challenging for me early on in our DIY process. If you’ve read my other blogs on this website, then you may know that the kitchen is a therapy room for me. I LOVE being in the kitchen! The kitchen was one of the rooms in this house that had been started but not completed. It had double ovens in a cabinet, a cook top, granite countertops, two dishwashers, and cherry cabinetry (not all of it was installed when we bought the house and we had to buy more to complete the kitchen). There wasn’t a refrigerator, the flooring was not finished, and the layout of some of the appliances, didn’t have a flow for us. Not a bad start, but it needed to be fully functioning for our family.

When it was time to “finally” start the kitchen remodel, my wonderful husband said that he thought it would take about one and a half weeks. I multiplied that by 2 and thought that my multiplication would “cover” any hidden surprises. Needless to say, we were both wrong; SO wrong!

This kitchen had an additional small sink next to the cooktop, which was next to the double oven cabinet, which was corner adjacent to one of the dishwashers. (If that was confusing, there are pictures at the bottom of the blog.) Eric had to remove the double oven cabinet because the oven doors couldn’t be opened if the dishwasher door was open; it was too congested and was a very poor layout. It turned out to be a HUGE blessing in disguise that he needed to rework the appliance layout, because, when Eric removed the double oven cabinet, it led to a whole lot of surprise discoveries we wouldn’t have known were there had it not been removed.

First, Eric noticed that the drywall behind where the double oven cabinet had been didn’t look right; so, he removed it.  Behind the drywall Eric found a multitude of safety and code violations.  About 12 inches had been cut out from each stud, this was done to run the drain pipe from the small sink and the vent line from the downdraft vent (or pop-up vent) for the cooktop. There was an electrical wire sandwiched between the drywall and the studs. He had to remove the cooktop to be able to fix this. He discovered that there were wires underneath the cooktop that were not properly covered. It was only by the grace of God that a fire never happened when we used the cooktop! The vent also had to come out. When Eric removed them both, he discovered that the wall was not straight and wasn’t properly anchored. (This wall was also part of the stairwell to the basement.) So now, the wall needed to be restructured, too.

Next Eric thought that the drain looked like it had a back pitch to it (the slope was the wrong way), he put a level on it, and it did indeed have a slope – the wrong way, so the drain was not properly draining. When he cut the drain line, there was this overwhelming smell that took over a fair portion of the house. The smell was like sour milk, vomit, and anything else with a strong odor all combined together. Like I said, this happened in Michigan – in January – and I didn’t care, but windows were opened up, the front door was left wide open. We were freezing, but we had to get rid of that nasty smell! We only used the sink for rinsing off the produce, but apparently the previous owners had poured milk down the drain and since the drain line was not installed properly, milk (and whatever else was put down the drain) left residue in the plumbing. It looked like cottage cheese on steroids.

At first, I thought it was a nice idea to have a small sink by the cooktop, but after the drain problem discovery, I decided that I really didn’t need a second sink in the kitchen. (One could say that I was sour to the idea of a second sink in this kitchen.)

There were other “hiccups” we discovered as we continued to cross the finish line of this kitchen remodel, but this blog is definitely the highlight reel from our experience! During that time, I became well acquainted with making many different types of food in the microwave which was set up in the living room during the remodel. When we bought this house, we thought that we would live there for many, many years to come, however, God called us to North Carolina. When we sold the house, it was not 100% finished. Eric estimates it was around 90% completed, including new siding, windows, and roof.

The blessing of a completely remodeled kitchen, was quite a challenging process, but we were so happy after seven very long weeks of testing, to finally be able to declare, “It is finished!”

The before picture of the kitchen that had many issues behind the wall. This picture (and the one below) were taken shortly after we purchased it but hadn’t moved in yet.

Before picture of the other side of the kitchen.

After picture of the wall that had many hidden secrets. Completed with permits and inspections.

After picture of the other side of the kitchen.