No Man is an Island

...but some kitchens are, namely ours. Today, for the first time in too long, I put in a full day working on the house. And work on the house I did. Not even peripheral stuff like organizing the basement so I can store stuff, get to the table saw, etc., but actual work on the actual house.

I finished removing the trim and paneling in the old entry hall (preserving the larger pieces of paneling for future re-use), removed the weird insulation (using my spiffy new 6.5hp shop vac to suck up the stray bits and pieces along with the mouse droppings), and started removing the trim and siding around the outside of the old door.

The result is that the kitchen is now completely cut off from any semblance of an unchanged house. One side has the old window opening that looks into new entry hall. Another is into the dining room, which is stripped down to studs and subfloor. And now the last open side is the hall, which is similarly denuded of finish materials.

I still have a lot to do before I demolish the kitchen, and numerous interruptions in the weeks to come (apheresis tomorrow, for starters), but it felt good to get some progress done on the house.