Finally

This title is for several things:

Finally we have a buyer for the house.  This past week the young couple signed the "compromis de vente" (sale arrangement) on Wednesday.  The real estate agent sent us the papers and we signed them.  They have a month to get the financing.  But they have already been to the banks and know that they'll be able to get it.  So normally, we'll sign the final sale papers on December 5th.  We'll need to go to Reims for that and sign at a lawyer's office.

AND because the house is in the process of being sold, we can finally get our kitchen put in.  We had already done a study of what we wanted with one of the stores in the area.  This week we finalized the plans. The man that is going to install it will come around the 27th and measure and do a technical control to make sure that what we have planned will work.  Then two weeks later it will be installed.

Looking towards the door to the garage.

Looking towards the door to the entryway.

Since we told them that we would take out what is already in the kitchen (cheaper that way) we decided we'd better get to work.  The man that put these cupboards in built them himself and used a lot of "wood" (pressed shelves from old furniture, etc) and on one wall the counter was tiled.

The wall between the kitchen door to the entryway (on the right) and the garage door (on the left)

Looking towards the garage door.

The first thing we did was to take down the hood.  We took screws out here and there to see what would move and got it down.  In the end we found out why there was so much grease in the kitchen.  Even though the fan worked it wasn't hooked up to the evacuation.

Then on another wall he had put up wood "siding" (for lack of a better word).  It was pretty but we didn't want it.  So we took that down and then started to take apart the cupboards and counter top on that wall.  We got some of that done on Wednesday but gave up because we couldn't figure out how he had attached the counter to the cupboards.  Thursday we finally got a small sledge hammer and a chisel and took that to it and finally broke it all apart.  Once we got that out we started on the two layers of wallpaper that had been behind the wood.  Mike did all of that.  No primer underneath!!  UGH!  What a job.

Almost got all of the wood off.

Taking out screws

Finally we figured it out.

Wallpaper is off.

Since we were on a roll with the other cupboard we decided to go ahead and do another cupboard.  We got the top cupboards down, in one piece.  Later on we had to break it up so that it would fit in the car.

Before

After

Then got the counter top off and the cupboards broken a part.  It didn't take much because the wood was not the best quality.  What a mess underneath.  You could see that there had been mice :(.  And probably more than the one that we caught.  We even found a mouse hole.  And years and years of dust, dirt, grease and grime.  

Trying to figure things out.

Yuck!!   And I had already swept the floor.

Floor is cleaned.

Two trips to the dump, one yesterday and one today and a little elbow grease and you'd never know that those cupboards had ever existed!  Now to work on the THREE layers of wallpaper and no primer!!  Mike did the top, I did the bottom.  We stopped because we don't work for long lengths of time.  That's one reason why we started the kitchen so soon.

yesterday

today

Done for the day

Mike had already done the wall where the fridge is right now before we even moved into the house.   Which leaves us with one wall to do.  It has the kitchen sink on it.  The installer will take that out.  But we're going to try and get as much done as possible.  We'll pull the dishwasher out, clean behind it and take the wallpaper off.

The oven will go in a cupboard on the wall on the left.  The fridge will be in the corner.

After that we need to paint the ceiling and put a primer on the walls.  Then we'll wallpaper.  Though the wallpaper will have to wait until after Mike's birthday. We have company for two days at the end of the month.

In the meantime we're living out of boxes.  All of the stuff that was in the cupboards is either in boxes, that we can get into in the garage, or in the veranda.  We're going to hook the burners back up so that we'll be able to cook.  And we'll put a picnic table or two in the kitchen to put things on.  I can't wait to have my kitchen.

Thank you again for all of your prayers for the sale of the house in Reims.  Have a great weekend, everyone.