Just say no to a galley Kitchen: Part I

My wife and I spent A LOT of time looking at houses around Des Moines.
We had a very small but concrete list of things we would not accept in a house.
The first was NO SUMP PUMPS! Anyone who has looked for a house in Beaverdale will tell you that's not any easy one to overcome (We went through a house with FOUR sump pumps in the basement).

The other big thing was no Galley kitchen, and no kitchen we could not modify

When we first entered 2824 for an open house held by the previous owners we walked into this kitchen:

It smelled of delicious fresh brewed coffee but it was small with minimal storage and a few other problems we would have to overcome. (edit by DB: there was no dishwasher. That had to change.)

We had met with contractors and Consolidated Kitchens & Fireplaces in Urbandale and we knew the design we wanted for our kitchen. So the next step was Demo. My wife's favorite part of any construction project.

We removed the upper cabinets which were suspended by iron bars from the ceiling, then removed and moved the lower cabinets to the garage for a work bench.


Now we're looking at the floor saying "That vinyl looks liked it's raised. I'll bet there's hardwood under there." Survey says...!

ERRRRRR wrong! After my father and I spent a good day of work ripping up several fine (frustrating) layers of flooring, we got down to bare subfloor.

Thankfully the previous owners had done some floor work in the dining room and told us they found matching flooring at Menards, sooooo after a short trip to the hardware store...

and a visit by a nice flooring guy later...

We had matching hardwoods in what would become the kitchen.