the butler's pantry, revisited

I've mentioned before about the butler's pantry, and the happy compromise between Dave and i. since i know that you are all drooling on the edge of your seat, and can't wait to see the latest progress, here are a slew of pictures- blow by blow. more than you ever all that you wanted to know. around here there is no such thing as a simple project that is completed quickly, or anywhere near budget. it's only taken us about 9 months to figure that out. we're quick on the uptake that way. so even though this post is about the butler's pantry, there were about 9 1/2 things that had to be done before we could even think about moving it over to the other side of the room. here the boys (all three of them, since N has no more doctor's excuse for lounging about) are taking the plaster and lath off of the ceiling. notice how careful they are being, and putting it directly into a big tub, to be immediately hauled outside. this is to avoid having plaster dust all over the house. again. even after 10 months of ripping out plaster and lath, i am still under the delusion that there is some possible way to avoid plaster dust all over the house. again. I'm quick on the uptake that way. see above.

here we have emptied out all the junk important stuff and moved it somewhere else to be in the way. Dave is cutting through the 2X2 that the base is fastened to. http://caplingerfamily.blogspot.com/2008/10/there-has-to-be-up-side.html

i included this picture of me so that you could see that i was actually involved in this project, and did not just boss my sons around, and force them to do all the dirty work. i am taking out the plaster from behind the shelves, and carefully placing it in the laundry basket, in order to prevent plaster dust from going all over the house. again. see above.

N is helping me get out all the plaster. see his happy smile? he loves this job!

this is totally random- not sure how it slipped in. but isn't little B cute? she loves to read this book- just like A did! and they both even have the same favorite page!

here you can see that all the plaster and lath is removed from the ceiling, and the ceiling has also been insulated. Dave has totally detached the top cabinets from the bottom cupboard, and the boys are helping him to lift it off. now that we have that done, Dave can install the light that he got for this room. but first we had to do all those other things. see above.

this is the other side of the room, and before they can move the butler's pantry over here, Dave needed to build a new wall. acutally, before they could build this wall, G and N had to fix the gigantic holes in the floor with new 3/4" subfloor. so here they're about done with the wall, and N is helping him. the laundry room is to N's left, and there will be a door between the laundry room and utility room. very handy for taking out the baskets of wet clothes.

and while we're at it, might as well put in those 2 new windows. N took out the old ones, as Dave took the measurements, and fiddled around to make the windows fit.


now that the wall is built, N and G helped me hang the bead board. since the butler's pantry has no back, i needed to do something and we thought that bead board would look nice. that was not too hard to do, as there were no outlets to cut around. just slap it up there, and nail it on.

now that it's up, it needs to be painted. first with a primer coat, and then with a coat of white super gloss interior/exterior latex enamel. the primer coat is the hardest, as the bead board really soaks up the paint, and it can be tedious to get the paint in all the cracks. but i really enjoy painting, and didn't mind. it's all progress! it seems as if it's been so long since there has been a project that i can do- most of the stuff lately has been something that only Dave can do. so i went at it like a "house a'fire!"

here is the butler's pantry with its new coat of historically accurate paint. very close to the original color- milk green. i will say, though, that i was not impressed with Lowe's computer matched paint. it turned out a very yucky minty green. like a baby nursery. so i picked something else instead that was very close, and I'm happy with my choice. a dear friend came over to help me paint, and N did take some pictures of us working together. but i thought that the pictures weren't very flattering i looked awful, so i didn't include the work in progress. sorry, heather!

so now, the butler's pantry is ready to be installed in its final resting place. but first, we have to hang some more bead board, as it's only covering 8 feet of the wall, and the pantry is 10 feet long. but before we can do that, we have to put in the door from the laundry room, which we are getting from a friend who has an old house, and an extra door that we can have. and then we have to hang the drywall on the ceiling. then hang the bead board on the other walls. but we can't do that until Dave wires the room.

and just between you and me- i think that the butler's pantry is growing on Dave. he still thinks that it's a big piece of junk, but i did hear him comment on the fact that it's pretty neat that the counter top of the base is one solid piece of wood- 24" wide! they just don't make trees like that anymore! even though Dave has tons of things to do, he's willing, without too much grumbling, to take the time to move and save this old piece of history. just for me. just because i like it so much. and just because he's a great husband like that.

so around and around we go, slowly making progress. very slowly. and actually, this whole thing started because Dave wanted to use that outside wall to install the hot water baseboard heat. so before he could do that, we had to do all these other things. see above!