Making Lakewood Manor: Bye bye bead board

Step one of the Kitchen Fixin' Plan was to move the ~~Thigh Destroyer~~ peninsula between the stove and the rest of the kitchen. We unhooked the stove and moved it out into the dining room, and got to work removing the beadboard so that we could bump the cabinets against that wall.

So pretty, I miss u beadboard ;(

All of the instructions I read on removing beadboard said that you should start at one end and move over one by one. That was hard, so we started in the middle like (not too bright) rebels.

I feel like I should mention that it was my terrible idea to start in the middle.

As soon as we had the first piece off, the yawing black depths of Spidertopia Kingdom were exposed. Just kidding, I made Adamo check and he said there weren't any spiders.

I didn't double-check.

It turns out that removing beadboard is an enormous pain in the ass when the person who installed said beadboard managed to nail each piece to the next piece sideways, at the most delicately attached part. It's even more of a pain in the ass when you are trying desperately to save the beadboard to reuse in another portion of the kitchen. Not sure that's gonna work out :(

I tried so hard, and got so far...

Eventually, after approximately five thousand years of toil, we got all of the beadboard off. And we were confronted with this:

...

Like... what? How... drunk..? The stud spacing... they cut the bottom plate?! Twice! There's a wall on the other side of the studs, even though it is behind another wall... I hate to say it but I seriously cannot even.

I had to force myself to turn away from the horror show, so I turned around and ripped the back off of the peninsula. (On purpose, as part of the plan.) There were still bits of old flooring under there!

It was really therapeutic.

Of course, as soon as the cats realized that there was a hole in the wall into which they could disappear for presumably forever, they were desperate to get in. Adamo and I hastily covered the wall with some random plastic tarp that I bought for painting but turned out to be really terrible for painting.

Then it was drinkin' time at the tool bar.

GET IT!!?? TOOL BAR!?? 'CAUSE THERE'S TOOLS! TOOLBAR LOLOLOLOLOL

We also realized that there was something super off about our drywall--there are two layers! (Seriously, wtf is up with the people who built this place!?) That meant that we would need to shim the studs a bit in order to get the closest sized drywall to fit. Luckily, some leftover beadboard paneling that we had was the perfect width for shims!

High quality work station right here, folks

Using the penisula as our workbench, we cut out little shims, then I nailed them to the studs. I have no idea if it's really necessary to have the shims go along the whole stud, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I AM THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF A PROFESSIONAL HOUSE MAKING PERSON

Around this time we realized that home remodeling is a) super dusty and b) really nerve-wracking when there is a possibility that a cat might be an asshole and trip you while you're trying to do something important with a saw. I bought some fancy construction zippers and used the aforementioned plastic drop cloth to block off both entries to the kitchen. It was great; it really gave an "Outbreak" feel to the whole operation.

Idiocy is our only option.

Next, we had to get the drywall! We weren't able to borrow a truck from anyone and Adamo wasn't a fan of my grand plan to put the drywall between two pieces of plywood and strap it to his car, so we rented a truck from the Home Depot.

Less expensive than two pieces of plywood

It was really exciting when Adamo pulled in with this big van; kinda like a construction Santa Claus! Until he threw open the doors for the disappointing single piece of drywall.

Worst Constructionmas, ever.

Using our handy-dandy ~~counter-tops~~ workbench, we cut the drywall to size and cut a hole for the outlet.

We did end up popping a stool under the droopy drywall

The guy who is good with the straight lines does the double-checking

Adamo checked for fit and then I screwed that puppy into the studs.

The girl who is bad at figuring out spatial placement does the drilling

Next, because Adamo has done most of the heavy lifting on literally everything else, I offered to do the drywall mudding. I'm obviously an expert after watching two and half youtube videos about it.

I can do this. It's kind of like grouting, right?

It's not really like grouting at all.

The corner was the absolute worst, and, in retrospect, I'm not sure why I agonized over it so much, considering the majority of it was going to be behind the cabinets.

Next came the stupid sanding. I hate sanding. Why do I have to use a light? I still don't really get it even though Adamo patiently shows me over and over again. Anyway, I thought it turned out pretty well for my first mudding job ever.