Removed Remaining Old Countertops

Yesterday and today I worked on removing the remaining old countertops from the kitchen.  I keep underestimating the amount of work it takes to do demolition work because I tend to assume it takes little skill to tear something apart.  My assumption would be correct if all I needed to do is indiscriminantly swing a sledge hammer; however, if I want to keep cabinets, walls, lighting, and other fixtures undamaged then I need to exercise extreme discression when removing the old stuff.

I'm sure there is a life lesson in this.  Giving and receiving criticism comes to mind. 

In order to remove the countertops surrounding the kitchen I needed to spend a little time studying how the counters were attached to the cabinets.  To do that I needed to remove drawers and empty the top shelf of the cabinets under the counters.  

When April and I started pulling things out of the kitchen again I thought to myself, 'Oh No! We just moved back into the kitchen.  Not this again.'  The pain of being displaced from our kitchen is still a fresh memory.  The good news is that this work is not going to take two and a half months. Actually, most of thie work will be finished by Saturday.  Not bad considering I started this on Monday.

Yesterday I was so proud of myself for finding and removing the hidden bolts holding the separate sections of the counter tops together.  I had expected to finish removing the old remaining countertops in about an hour.  The problem is that I didn't expect them to be glued so well to each other and to the walls.  The following picture shows the damage I inflicted when I removed the backsplashes that were glued to the walls.

I'll patch up the dry wall but not worry too much about making it look pretty because we are going to add a tile border that will cover this up good.

Once I got the first section out, removing the other sections of countertop was a little easier.  Out of the four days I've spent working on the counter tops, I've spent a day and a half removing the old countertops and two days (so far) making the new ones.

Here is a picture April took of me just after I had finished measuring, cuting, and fiting the last piece of Hardee board, a cement board that will support the cement and will become part of the counter top.

Tomorrow I will do the stove and sink cut-outs, pre-install mounting hardware for our new stainless steel single-bowl undermount sink, attach the cement forms, tape and mud all seams, and caulk everything.  Caulking everyting is important.  I didn't caulk anything before I poured the center island and we ended up leaking cement everywhere.  It was bad.  So bad that this time I've put painters plastic under the Hardee board that's attached to the wall, covers the cabinet top (under the Hardee board) and covers the front of the cabinets.