So many updates! So little time!

I have been doing so much work that I have not had time to blog it!

So I will jump right in to the latest non painting project!

To start my kitchen overhaul without a ton of money I chose to refinish the countertops and add a backsplash.

Here is the before look: a great style if you like unsealed wood and orange wood.

As you can see it is a solid wood construction, and the surface is...destroyed. Plus, no one needs that much orange wood... ever. 

My original plan was to keep the backsplash and stain it also. That plan ended when I started trying to actually get it stripped and stained.  

The stripper goo worked well. but the nooks and crannies were pretty much impossible. 

After what felt like hours of sanding and attempting to stain, I basically created a huge mess. It was bad. 

I will add photos of the disaster if I have any.

So since that staining was a disaster the plan changed...

I had to remove the wood backsplash. On the plus side, removing this means I get 3 more inches of counterop depth.

The downside was that the backsplash was WAY TOO WELL CONSTrUCTED!!!!!

First there was 50 year old high quality hardwood. It ain't called hardwood for nuthin!

Then, the backsplash was attached with hidden 4 inch screws that were drilled into a vertical hole into the countertop, then hidden with a dowel.


 

This started a one month long saga.

Trying to drill the dowels out filled the hole with sawdust and then the screw could not be removed. So started the buying of tools. First I tried a multitool thingy, the hardwood just laughed at me, it barely could scratch the surface... Dremel was too small to get deep enough.

So then I got a jigsaw. I figured I would probably need it at some point anyway for something else, so I made the $40 investment. 

After some practice I found that I could jigsaw down on either side of the hole and then pry the wood out. Since the saw dust did not go in the hole, I could use a long screwdriver to start the screw loosening then finish with the power drill. Only one screw got so stripped I had to get all crazy hulk on.. 

Once the back was removed...   we are fast forwarding like 2 moneth at this point...

There is beautiful 1970s wall paper, a couple of mummified cockroaches and a ton of glue residue to be seen... 

Then started the painful process of removing the 12 foot span behind the sink... I will spare you the pictures of my hell...