Ocean Hill Reno: Progress in the Kitchen

During the winter, when we can’t open the windows, we work on “clean” projects, such as sewing new curtains. We save up messy and toxic tasks such as plastering and stripping for spring and summer. We’ve accomplished quite a bit this year, although not as much as we hoped. Our agenda was to finish all the woodwork and the plastering. What we actually accomplished was rehabilitating the built-ins on the garden floor.

The extra storage space has freed the middle room of heaps of boxes and bags. Now it seems so spacious. We use it for laundry, and it is lined with book cases. Someday I plan to use it as a sewing room.

We started by hiring our favorite crew to strip all the woodwork in the kitchen and middle room. But because lead paint is clingy, it took much longer than expected — two weeks to strip only the dish cupboard and closets. After that, we couldn’t take the fumes and living on one floor with a toddler any more, so we stopped. Then a carpenter spent a few weeks completely revamping the built-ins, including plastering, priming, rebuilding drawers, putting in new shelves, replacing broken glass, fixing the cabinet doors so they close correctly, and making other repairs and improvements. He even built an enclosure and worked inside it so any remaining lead dust wouldn’t go everywhere. Our two drawers in the kitchen, one of which holds heavy flatware, now roll on wheels on metal rails instead of (broken) wood rails and are much more sturdy.

When we purchased the house five years ago, the original bead board was covered in fake paneling. Under that was fake tile. Unfortunately, that had been attached with linoleum glue. I spent a summer in a respirator trying to strip off glue and old paint but it wouldn’t budge. So eventually we replaced the old bead board, which we now know was fir, with pine bead board we had custom made to match.

We also put in new light fixtures, linoleum, bought new chairs, and a metal counter.

We’d like to close up the plumbing chase next to the fireplace, repair the broken moldings, and skim coat the walls soon. We’ll need to decide how to refinish the wood and paint.

Above, the kitchen in 2007, before we bought the house.

Above and below, the kitchen in 2012 after we had done some work. The inside of the dish cupboard was covered in adhesive shelf paper, which no painter or plasterer knew how to remove. Finally, our wood strippers were able to do it by dissolving the paint underneath.

Above and below, the stripped and repaired built-ins.