To Do (and do, and do...)

I've been continuing to work on removing stuff in the old entryway and the kitchen in preparation for the big day, when we cease to have a functioning kitchen. But I've started to realize just how much stuff I still have to do in order to get to where I can gut the kitchen:

• finishing re-organizing the basement storage
  
• replace the galvanized plumbing in the old bathroom
• finish the new bathroom
• finalize design and measurements on the cabinets
• rewire the light on the carport
  
• clean up the living room and organize a "kitchen" space
• move out of the kitchen

Some of these things, like re-wiring the carport light have to be done before the new kitchen, since the existing switch is in a wall that's going away. (And it needs to be rewired anyways, since they didn't do a very good job with it in the first place, and the conduit is rusting.) But a lot of this is easier to do before demolishing the kitchen, so I can minimize the time we're without it.

Someone on the That Home Site! forums suggested that if you've got two or more bathrooms, that during a kitchen remodel you should temporarily make one of the bathrooms into part of your kitchen space (shared duty between kitchen and bath doesn't bear thinking upon...yrrch!) But in order to do that, the new bathroom needs to be finished. And it would be helpful if the old bathroom had hot water in the sink.

A couple years back I remodeled the area around the shower in the old bathroom, and replaced the galvanized plumbing to the shower with copper. But the sink and toilet still have galvanized pipes, and the hot water to the sink stopped completely last year. Since the bathroom shares a wall with the kitchen nee entryway, it's much easier to deal with that while things are ripped up, but before the kitchen is completely redone.

Fortunately, the unknown insulation in the wall between is paper. Paper pulp insulation, to be exact. So while it's still going to be messy to remove, it means I can do it myself and not hire a licensed hazmat removal company. I'm still baffled at the uselessness of it, though. And what a buffet for silverfish, termites and other creepycrawlies.