Kitchen Demo and Uncovering Shiplap

The former kitchen was U-shaped. Originally I thought I'd just leave the floorplan on knock off the top cabinets on the L, but as our plans started to develop, we both realized we needed to just start from scratch. 

In the photo below, this whole wall will be knocked down eventually. It's a load bearing wall, so we will have to get it professionally removed and a new beam put in. This will open up the kitchen/breakfast area to the family room and entry.

The wall of the kitchen that connects to the basement is rotting out due to a leak in the roof. We started removing the wall and realized that there are wide planks of shiplap underneath! A lot of the shiplap will need replaced, but we found more on the wall we're knocking down that will help us replace what's missing on the wall we won't knock down. So at least the one wall of the kitchen will be covered in shiplap.

We also discovered that in the photo below, there was originally a window underneath the white shiplap boards. We decided to add another window to the kitchen to let more light in and be true to the original design of the house.

We have yet to remove the light fixtures, the ceiling, and the plumbing, but we're starting to see the space open up and that is pretty exciting!

This space will now be the dining area.

The door will be removed, the stove will actually go here. The door will be moved to the back wall which will take you through a mud room to our garage. We'll have the fridge and pantry next to the door on this back wall.

A 4 x 8 island will separate the kitchen space from the dining space.

This is the view from the family room looking in to the kitchen.

We also plan on taking out all the ceilings on the first floor. The original ceilings are 10 feet high. We had planned on taking the kitchen/dining area ceilings up to cathedral, but in the end decided to just keep it consistent at 10 feet all around. We plan to add some barn wood beams in the kitchen which will give the kitchen the character we're looking for.