Those Cabinets Have GOT to Go!

A few of the cabinets.

How hard can it be to take down a few kitchen cabinets?  Like a lot of people, I had watched my fair share of home rehab show on television, so I thought, probably not that hard, right?  Come to find out, it can be that hard, especially when that cabinet had been built in place in the kitchen. 

On the first day that I had available to work in the kitchen last February, I walked in and decided to approach it with a plan.  I hoped that this plan would make the opening salvo of the demolition phase a walk in the park.  To begin, I started with removing all the hardware.  Not a lot to take off, you think in the beginning, but that is quite deceiving. There were 19 cabinet doors and 7 drawers, thirty-eight hinges, 19 latches, 26 handles and a total of 356 screws just for the hardware. It took a bit more time than I originally considered removing it all. Thankfully, my husband had given me a nice power drill set for my last birthday, and this helped to make the job easier than if they all had to be removed by hand. Soon, almost all the cabinet doors and drawers were stripped of hardware and the doors and drawers set aside to be removed from the site.  And I had a twenty-pound box of metal hardware to recycle.

All that was left was the framework of the cabinets. I decided to get the lower once out of the way first. The two small side areas came loose from the wall quite easily, with just a little work with a pry bar. They were held in place by nails rather than screws, and the nails were not that well set. Easy! This would be a breeze. But wait. There was a large yellow cast iron sink in the largest section of the lower cabinets. I made a few attempts at prying this section away from the wall, but alas, the pipe attached to the sink would not allow anything to budge.  Time to take on the upper cabinets.

Stepladder at the ready, I approached the smallest piece first. The cabinets were nailed to the wall in this case as well. They used a lot of nails, in both the back wall and the ceiling, and it took a great deal of prying just to get the first part loose. Levering the cabinet back and forth it finally came free and landed with a thud on the floor.  O.K. this just might work! I moved down the line on the small section and one by one they fell to the floor. There were random areas of thin plywood in a few areas and once the cabinets came loose, they were easily removed.  There was framework around the chimney area that had been built out to make the wall flush. That was gone in a flash.

Once the first upper cabinets were removed it was obvious that the ceiling had received a second layer of drywall as lovely cutout areas now glared back at me from the ceiling where once there were cabinets. I decided that now was not the time to worry about that, and would address it another time.

Now all that remained was the sink section and the large cabinets above that area. I tried to loosen the upper area, but the prospect of this large section possibly falling on me rather than the floor prevented me from going too far.  It was obvious I would need help. I would have to fight this battle another day.

A few days latter, I was able to convince Mr. Oshlo and Mr. Dack to take a look at the situation. In no time at all they had the sink disconnected and the lower cabinet loose. It came out and revealed old thin plywood underneath that was easily removed. The upper cabinets were right up next to the chimney and this required a more careful touch to keep from damaging the chimney too much. It was loose from my previous attempts to pry it from the wall. A few good tugs and the large upper cabinet were soon on the floor along with all the other pieces.

The walls that had been hidden for so long now revealed everything. Lots of large holes from electric boxes, venting attempts, cracked plaster, and a bit of chiseling out along the chimney that will have to be repaired in order for the chimney to be used.  The various hills and valleys of the floor were now more pronounce where they had once been covered over by cabinets.  At least now we had an idea of what we would be facing in this room. This room will be a lot of work.