It was just a matter of time. We’ve been talking about painting and doing some work in the kitchen since we moved in back in July. But, like most things we talk about, we haven’t done anything. Until now. This week we stopped by Home Depot to get some paint samples. We found colors we liked for every room on the 1st floor. Well, except for the bathroom, but that will probably be a project all it’s own. But, while at Home Depot, we picked up some dust mask and a pry bar. LOOK OUT! As you can see, Jeanne went to town on the “bulkhead” above the kitchen cupboards. I use the term bulkhead very loosely because it was merely a facade. It was just 1×1′s as a frame, then some cheap paneling painted white. Yes, it did hide the vent for the microwave. But it also hid the fact that the vent was partially unhooked. Yummy.
It’s always fun to pull things apart in an older house because you never know what you might find. Well, mostly what we found was dust. Dust, dust, and more dust. But, we also found a copy of The Instructor for the Sunday School. This appears to be a publication for the Christian Reformed Church that was published in the `50s in Grand Rapids. This particular issue has a date of July 27th, 1952. I’ll scan the entire publication and post it sometime in the future.
That was really the only thing we found of interest. Did I mention there was a lot of dust? The shop vac made quick work of that. Oh, the CRC publication may have been the only thing we found above the cupboards, but there was plenty of interesting things hidden by the bulkhead. These were really wiring related. First was a very large wire that could be seen coming out of hole in the wall next to the microwave vent then went up into the attic with the duct. Upon further inspection, this is an 8/3 wire. That means it’s 8 gauge wire (quite large) and 3 conductors. Must have been for the stove. But why is it going up? 
The breaker box is in the basement. So, instead of going a foot or so down, then across the floor to the breaker box that is under the steps going down stairs, it goes up, across the kitchen ceiling, then down one of the walls to the breaker box. Actually, it’s not hooked up to either end any more. I’m going to try to pull it out. With the price of copper right now, I may be able to sell it to pay for part of the paint! 
The other interesting thing was the wiring for the light above the sink. It’s an outlet in a handy box attached to a wire that just goes up into a hole in the plaster in the ceiling. The light over the sink had a cord wired to it that plugged into this outlet. I don’t think that was ever code. The cable for our under-cabinet TV also comes from that hole. We’re going to have to do some rearranging.
That’s as far as we made it this weekend. While Jeanne was doing the tear down, I was out cleaning up the leaves that had fallen and blown into our yard after the snow fell. That was great fun. I also did the spring cleanup of Scout exhaust. I’m not real good about doing that when the snow covers it up.
This was also a good cooking weekend. This morning I through a batch of summer sausage in the smoker. It took about 5 hours to cook. I tried a bit after dinner. I think it was another successful batch. We had Jeanne’s mom over for dinner and made beef ribs on the charcoal grill. That turned out quite good too. The ribs had a recipe for a BBQ sauce on the package. It was plumb jam, garlic powder, ginger, red wine vinegar and soy sauce. From the ingredients, I wasn’t sure how it was going to be. It wound up being more of a glaze, but man was it good.
That’s all I’ve got for now. You can check out all the pictures of the first part of the tear down by clicking here.
