Lowering the Bar: Phase Two

When we last left off the electrical fairy was doing it’s thaang.  After the electrical bid-ness was all finished there was lots and lots of cutting to do.  The cutting started with the remaining drywall along the perimeter of the island. 

Then there was some pounding with the hammer that yours truly did.  The plaster on the side that faced the kitchen was pretty hard to cut through so some hammering did the trick!  At this point I was panicking because you really couldn’t go back on a gaping hole….

After a while the elbow grease persevered and all the drywall and plaster was cut off the island to the right level.  There were some areas where the drywall went below the desired line, but that was OK.  Why was it okay you ask?  Because we are going to put in…..SUBWAY TILE for a backsplash.  BAM!  My dreams of a subway tiled kitchen have come true!  Well not exactly yet….but they will!

The studs that were left were chopped off at the exact right level that we had drawn our line to. 

And after chopping a little off the top we were ready to go! 

Here is the view from the dining room.  At this point I just went….Ahhh it is all worth it!  The lowered height made the two rooms look more cohesive and flowing already.  I can now actually see the kitchen from the dining room rather than 5 feet of bar!  I almost peed my pants with excitement…..but don’t worry I didn’t.   

When we took the bar off and cut the drywall and plaster there was an exposed wall piece.  Some pliers or “linesman pliers” as my technical hubby says were used to snip off the mesh screen from the plaster to make the corners flush. 

Next, a scrap piece of drywall was used and cut to size to fit into the big gaping hole in our wall.    

The drywall was then screwed into the studs.     

Next corner molding was cut to length to help mold perfect corners for our exposed drywall.       

It was placed on the corner of the drywall….       

And then we busted out the All Purpose Joint Compound to get some serious work done!        

Then we let the mud fly making sure to heavily coat the corners, indents and screw holes.        

And then we mudded some more.        

Meanwhile while we were doing all this hard work…AKA I was in the fetal position with anxiety and the hubby was plowing through, the Electrical Fairy relocated the light switches to the wall to the right of the bar.  Let there be light!        

After the mud dried on the wall (consult the packaging to be sure of the dry time) we sanded that baby down to make the lines flush with the existing wall.

Here is what it looks like after a hard days work – check back in for the final piece of how we lowered the bar in our house….literally!