Carolina Cottage Demo: Kitchen and Bathroom

The Carolina Cottage Demo is in full swing! {She’s officially been named thanks to all of you!} I clearly didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but here we are. As I mentioned in last week’s blog, the home was built in 1940 and has passed through several owners who all apparently did a variety of updates. While it has been such hard work {my arms are like jello}, we have found some amazing treasures along the way. But, we’ve also encountered a lot of rot and just gross things {looking at you kitchen and bathroom}.

I was so hopeful the fireplace would have stood the test of time being brick and all, but it had so much wood rot around it. I had to remove the bricks used to cover the original opening. {Thankfully, I was able to salvage a ton of brick to replace that ugly cover up! It’s the same schoolhouse brick we hauled to our Beaufort property.}

Peeling Back the Carolina Cottage Layers

Right after I bought the home I brought my kids to see it and their reactions cracked us up. They for sure think we’ve lost our minds. We’ve pulled up so much flooring, several layers of walls in some rooms and even pulled down an entire exterior wall this week. I figured we would find some unexpected “treasures” along the way and boy, was I right!

Peeling back the layers to reveal what’s behind the walls might be my favorite thing I’ve ever done. Once we started peeling, we realized there were at least three layers: faux wood panel, some sort of wall covering with wallpaper trim AND tar paper. I finally caved and bought this wallpaper steamer which made a huge difference.

It’s been A LOT of hard work and a definite team effort, but we’ve had fun along the way too. I would be so lost without my Daddy and MIL! We’ve even pulled down ceiling tiles and he is refusing to put a mask on. Who knows what is floating around in this house after 83 years (put your dang mask on Dad)! 

Kitchen and Bathroom Demo

Even though this house isn’t very big by today’s standards, we knew the kitchen and bathroom demo would be doozies. I’m thankful there is only one bathroom at this point as I am not sure I could handle more than that. The state of the house when we bought it was bad {clearly}, but I didn’t realize just how bad.

The ceilings in a couple rooms were basically coming down on us and the bathroom floor almost sunk in on itself when we started the demo. Once we started pulling and tearing we found so much rot behind walls and under floors. We ended up gutting the bathroom down to it’s bones and will just started from scratch there. {Yep, that’s Mark standing in the gutted bathroom.}

For the kitchen, I knew almost immediately it would get relocated to what the last owners were using as a dining room. The dining room was more than double the size of what they were using as their kitchen. It honestly wasn’t much larger than the bathroom. However, we didn’t realize how much rot was in the rear exterior wall were that original kitchen placement was. Mark’s Uncle ended up just pulling the whole thing off! I still can’t believe that happened.

Cottage Character

This little Cottage Home Demo feels like it is not so little anymore, but I know it will be worth it. While the home needs major TLC, it still has so much beautiful character to it. From the curved entryway to the original glass door knobs, to the wonderfully intact tongue and groove walls I have found under all the layers. I know she is going to be quite the stunner when we are done. While I have never been more exhausted in my life, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more excited. Am I crazy? {Don’t answer that.}

Stay tuned for next week’s updates as the demo starts to slow down and we can begin the fun parts! Also, don’t you love the name?? Thank you all so much for submitting ideas and voting on your favorite one!