Kitchen Remodel (Part 01)

Here's a first look at our ongoing kitchen remodel!

I was going to wait a while before posting about this, but our A/C unit fried recently, and that wiped out all of the money we had saved for the new kitchen counters. It also put a hold on replacing the sink and sink cabinet, since (even though we have the parts) that needs to be replaced almost simultaneously with the counters.

The delay is actually helpful in one way. I still have to finish the walls, ceiling, and window frames, so I can continue to stand on the old counters and not worry about damaging them. So there's that.

The Setup

When we first decided to remodel the kitchen, the focus was to replace the sink and sink cabinet, paint the cabinets white, and replace the warped pressboard countertops with granite. However...

The ceilings throughout our house are 10' high, except in the 9' high kitchen. There were also two soffits - one above the refrigerator and another above the sink - so it was only 8' high at those points. The questions were - why was this lowered ceiling originally installed, and could it be removed?

Our guess was that the lower ceiling was installed in order to hide electrical and HVAC work, and I figured that I could knock a hole in the end of each soffit and peek inside to see what was there. At worst, I could repair the hole and we could leave the ceiling alone. At best, maybe we could eliminate the soffits or the entire ceiling.

Ceiling Inspection

The soffit over the sink was stuffed with old insulation, and some odd wiring. The soffit over the fridge was completely empty(!), so it must have been installed as some sort of visual counterpoint to the soffit on the adjacent wall (over the sink).

Inside the soffit over the sink

The empty soffit over the fridge

Orange: soffits
Blue: HVAC
Green: Ceiling light power
Red: Strange wire

Standing on the sink counter and opening a soffit hole big enough to get my head and a flashlight up into it, I discovered:

• one wire (red) literally lying on the lowered ceiling as it ran from the south wall to the north wall, where it burrowed down into the wall to power an outlet with a switch for the sink light, then back up from the outlet and into the soffit to provide power for the overhead sink light;
• a knob-and-tube wire coming down from the ceiling and then tied into newer wire (green) branching out to power the ceiling lights; and 
• some protruding HVAC (blue) on the wall opposite the sink. 

Otherwise, apart from the joists holding up the ceiling, it was empty. 

Clearly, this was a bit problematic. The electrical was certainly not up to code. But how to deal with it? And can the ceiling be removed in its entirety?

More on that next time.

Corner HVAC and power for one ceiling light

Wall HVAC and a look at the poor ceiling light wiring

A better look at the electrical just lying on the ceiling