The Kitchen Demolition!

We started out Saturday morning taking the garbage disposal & sink out...
The walls in the kitchen were all Malamac- this shiny plastic stuff that was pretty popular back in the 50's or 60's. (I think, I've never actually done the research to find out exactly WHEN it was hot, but that seems likely...) A sweet story about this wall- the woman we bought the house from Ella, raised 3 children in this house along with her husband Fred. They owned this house for 48 years before Ella went into a retirement home this year. She wrote us a beautiful letter that we found when we got our keys the first day, and one of the things she said was that she always hung her kids artwork on this wall.
Unfortunately we had to take the molding down, as the Malamac went underneath it. We'd have to anyway for the new drywall, so there was no avoiding it. Scott was in charge of safely removing & marking window & door molding. It all came off in good shape so it will be easy to get back up.

Then one of my colleagues from work- known as "Work Scott" (to differentiate from "Builder Scott") came over with his son Caleb for a little bit of Saturday demolition. We pretty quickly were able to get the malamac off the walls..But unfortunately the cabinets were built in place, so we couldn't remove them. It was a shame because they were seriously solid cabinets. They were really beautiful and heavy duty- but there was just no way to "nicely" remove them from the walls, they had to be dissassembled.
And finally, after all the lathe & plaster dust had cleared...
So maybe the dust hasn't all cleared, but at least the lathe & plaster are off the walls. it was a BIG job, thank goodness we had many hands!!! The electrician came in on Wednesday to put in a new panel, and again on thursday to wire the kitchen. Jim & Hilda (my drywallers, they seriously ROCK. They are the best ever!) are bringing drywall out on Friday, starting on the ceiling on friday or Monday, and hopefully the electrical inspector will be out on Monday morning (not afternoon) so they can get going on the walls Monday as well.