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I Am Buried in Sawdust and IKEA Boxes

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Sarah Buys a House has been a chronicle of Sarah DeGiorgis' journey along the road to becoming a property owner in West Philadelphia. Now that she owns the home, it will chronicle the renovation.

Kitchen renovation is underway! I'm buried under tons of sawdust and Ikea boxes but I came up for air to report on a few important things. First! As some people pointed out in the comments a couple of weeks ago, some brick walls weren't built to be "exposed" and so look a little...messy.

The brick wall I was thinking of exposing in my kitchen is kind of like that, plus it's been covered by real, thick plaster which is actually quite nice - none of that silly drywall! That and the fact that the plaster actually does offer quite a bit insulation makes me hesitant to expose any brick that isn't already on its way the being exposed, if you know what I mean. So no exposed brick in the kitchen for now.

The kitchen renovation is really just opening up either wall a bit to let more light in from the back and front. The back wall in fact had a window in it that someone covered up—why? That old window will be french doors that open on to a little sunporch that I will hopefully make into my conservatory soon. Doesn't conservatory sound so much better than greenhouse? I think so. My goal is to name all the rooms in my house after the rooms in Clue, obviously.

Lastly, the photo is of my most exciting discovery of the week: the floor underneath the linoleum (pictured) is oak. Hooray! The two to three layers of linoleum were glued on plywood and the plywood was nailed to the floor. It's good that I don't have to get the linoleum glue off the floor (or so I've heard) but now I'm obsessively pulling out nails whenever I see them. But they're small so I don't think the holes will be a problem once everything is sanded and finished. It's kind of like these nice old floors were protected for all those years under the plywood. Optimism!