Out, Damned Soffit! Out, I Say!

Today was a three-sweat-band day.  For those of you who do not hang around Rick often, let me tell you that the man has the world's best cooling system. The minute that he starts to really work, his "air conditioner" kicks in as his pores open and sweat pours out. He seriously sweat out three heavy-duty, tennis-approved, Nike sweatbands today.

We started to prep the kitchen today for new cabinets by tearing out the useless, 1960's soffits. While I generally am not opposed to soffits, the original kitchen floor plan for this house had a wall oven where I want my modern-day pantry installed.  The wall ovens called for a much broader and deeper cabinet than the pantry, so the soffit on the right side of the end wall was oversized for my current kitchen plans.  The kitchen contractor, Michael, also suggested that we remove the soffits so I could have taller cabinets for even more storage space.

For those of you familiar with the Bard, you get the joke of the title of this blog.  For those of you who think I just choose weird titles, check out Act V of Macbeth for a little context. Believe me, about mid-day today, I wanted to scream those lines as we ran into a small electrical problem...

We started early by going into the garage to scoop out the blown-in insulation that filled the open cavities of the soffits.  While we got most of it out, we did have to contend with fluffy white insulation occasionally floating down every now and then through the open soffit areas.

Last view of the soffits in the kitchen.

Our not-so-efficient plastic draped area. The front
of the soffits are torn out.

Rick did most of the hard tear-down work since we had limited room to work, and I have learned long ago to always stay clear of swinging hammers, prying crowbars, and crumbling plaster.  Yesterday my house was pristine clean as I did not want the inspector to find tell-tale plaster dust anywhere.  Today, even though Rick tried to tape off the work area, plaster dust coats every surface. The joys of home remodeling!

He tackled the front of the soffits first and found few surprises in the typically framed soffits.  A few old nails and wire mesh on which the plaster was put gave us a little resistance, but for the most part, the structures were coming down nicely.

Beware of killer black wires that try to crawl out of the wall.

At the very middle of the end wall, we found an electrical box that we knew was in the soffit. I think at one time a 1960's owner probably had a now-vintage clock plugged in up there.  The wires were dead long ago, so that was easy to remove.  A second wire ran from the area over to the left-hand side wall.  When Rick opened that up, he found the remains of that black wire and also a white wire.  We knew that the white wire is hooked up to either the overhead lights or the outlets near the counter top, so we left those in place.  The black wire, Rick said, was the remains of the other one and was dead.  He took a wire cutters to snip it off, and POP! Thankfully, Rick was holding an insulated wire cutter and did not get blown off the ladder, because the wire very clearly sent him a message that it was far from dead, although it was not above trying to put Rick into that state of being.

He turned off all the circuits, did his magical electrical thing, and was able to cut the now definitely expired wire out of the way. He ran to the store to get other boxes because in removing the soffits we had to reroute a couple of wires that were, alas, too short.  By noon, the score card read Rick 1, Electricity 0.

Well, almost zero. As is typical in Florida in the summer, the afternoon brought another very loud thunderstorm complete with lots of God's original electricity and torrential rains. Thankfully, we did not lose power, although that is always a possibility.

The afternoon found all of the soffits out, and the drywall ceiling was ready to replace.  We had to cover more territory than we thought we would because in trying to take down a stubborn 2 x 4, Rick pulled a bit too hard and a whole section of ceiling decided not to let go of the falling wood.  Ah, well, I always wanted to spend money on a new ceiling that no one will see because it will be above the new cabinets...

When we got to the left-hand wall, I said, "As long as we have the wall open, why don't we run some wire down the wall for our new dishwasher and other outlets?"

New drywall on the ceiling, but original block walls still
showing on the back and right-hand walls.

"I hadn't thought of that, but that is a brilliant idea," Rick said.  "Go out to the garage and bring in the large wire."  I went out to the garage and found a large bundle of smaller wire and a small roll of fat, larger wire.  Of course, I brought in the wrong one.  However, by that time Rick had knocked a hole in the wall in a location that will someday be within one of my new cabinets, and he and I fished two wires from the upper to the lower walls. We will use those wires later this week to install additional outlets required in the new kitchen plan.

By dinner time, all of the new drywall was up.  After dinner, I put the four bags of insulation we took out of the attic back into the attic over the new "ceiling" while Rick added a coat of plaster "mud" to the concrete block walls that the old soffits used to cover.

The end of the three-sweat-band day shows drywall on the
ceiling and plaster mud on the walls.

The soffits are out, so Phase One of the kitchen remodel is complete.  Tomorrow we add another coat of mud, we tape and add mud to the ceiling, and we start to tackle the additional electrical outlets in the room.  Once we get this prep work done, we can call the kitchen contractor and tell him to come and install the new cabinets. Once those are in, then we can contact the granite people to measure for the counter tops.

The kitchen was the first room that we gutted last year after we moved into the house, and it is the second-to-the-last room (the main bath being the very last) that we are working to renovate.  Last week the master bath was a remarkable transformation, and I think that once we give Gladys a new kitchen, she will be a pretty classy old doll.