Karen was out all day today in Montreal, so Linda and I took care of Ben while the electrician installed an outlet for the new range this morning. Linda removed most of the cabinet next to where the refrigerator is going, jacked up the countertop to its proper height (it was sagging in the middle due to poor structural support), and did a lot of sanding of the walls and shelves to get ready for priming and painting. Various other shelves about the old stove area were also removed.

I went to work from 12:15 to 4:45pm, and took care of putting Ben to sleep around 7:45pm. Somewhere in there was a diaper blowout, a load of laundry, getting carry-out for dinner, and Ben’s bath. Whew.

Some pictures:

The cabinet on the right side of the sink is gone

The cabinets above the stove are dismantled

The countertop is now level and the bottom support no longer sags

Whew – today was busy.  First we disconnected and then took out the cooktop, and dismantled the cabinet that supported it, which involved a whole lot of whacking, pulling, and unscrewing.  We also disconnected the oven and tried to remove it from the wall cabinet, but decided it was too heavy and we would leave it for the folks delivering the new range on Tuesday (they are supposed to haul away the old stuff).

Next, we switched the fridge door to open the opposite direction, and removed the range hood (exposing a small section of pink paint!).  We took down the shelf in the window, and removed some of the trim around the countertop. We also took down all of the cabinet doors and removed hinges and handles.

Finally, we did some sanding of the inside of the cabinets and some of the shelves to get ready to repaint.  A full set of photos from the renovation is available on Flickr in my Kitchen Renovation photoset, with day 2 photos in the slideshow below.

Our kitchen renovation starts today, thanks to Karen’s mom!  Today we went shopping at Home Depot, and picked up the lumber and other supplies, piling them into my car and the rental car (which is brand new, meaning its first real trunk load was stacks of plywood).

Ben in the bouncer

The kitchen before renovations – looking at fridge

The kitchen before renovations – looking at door

Another view near the door

Workshop in the basement with lumber

The workshop