How to Actually Get Rid of an Old Kitchen

To Do Your Demolition Right, Forget the Sledgehammer!

When doing a demolition the shows on home and garden television will tell the amazing story of a couple working a small butterfly catching business trying to renovate their dream home for the child that's on the way. They'll talk through a design with the host of the show before a crew completely demolishes the interior of the home in true dramatic fashion. Unfortunately, that's not the way to remodel a kitchen. Not only does it leave you with dust and debris EVERYWHERE, it introduces a whole new array of safety hazards that could be avoided following these tips.

The demo process can be sorted into three major steps:

1. Prepping your kitchen for demo
2. Taking down the trim, counters, cabinets, and fixtures
3. patching, sanding, priming, and painting your drywall for the remodel

Mistakes Prepping your Space
This is less about what not to do and is more about the reminders-
Whatever you do, make sure to remove all your belongings from your cabinets. That's pots, pans, plates, wine bottles, Tupperware, spices, glass. Literally everything in your cabinets must go out. In addition to that, make sure to TURN OFF the electrical, gas, and water lines going to your kitchen. You may have to shut off the water to the house if you don't have a line solely for your kitchen. This is important because if you're planning on moving or replacing your appliances, they will have to be disconnected. Lastly, set up any barriers you need to avoid dust going into other rooms. Lay down some cardboard if you'd prefer to protect your flooring and aren't planning on replacing it.

You definitely don't want to skip any of these steps because otherwise it WILL lead to disaster during the actual tear down.

How to Take Down your Cabinets
We said before NO SLEDGEHAMMER.
We mean it. Cabinets can be sold or donated if you're not planning on reusing them. In addition, the extra debris is not something you want to deal with when you could instead have neat stackable wooden boxes instead.
Since cabinets are secured into the walls and to each other, you may spend some times carefully hunting down every screw you can to uninstall the cabinets properly. Some screws may be covered by stickers that would have been used to hide the screw heads in the original install.
Generally speaking you want to move from top to bottom, the process isn't always linear but this should be a good guideline for the best way to approach your demo:
Start with your trim and moldings including crown, light rail, and toe kick, and then move on to your upper cabinets.
You may need to use a pry tool and utility knife to cut away the caulk from the trim and cabinets, or peel the moldings away from the boxes.
Be sure to have an extra set of hands to help you with any heavy cabinets
Next move on to removing the countertops, and then your tall cabinets before uninstalling the base cabinets.
Countertops, in particular stone tops can be heavy heavy. We do not recommend you remove your own stone tops without several people available to help or better yet, outsourcing to a professional.

Prepping Drywall
 We don't really specialize in drywall repair but we can offer a few tips about how to patch your drywall after a demolition.
If you have a small hole, some drywall mud will do the trick.
If you have a hole that's between2 and 8 inches, then you may have to do what's called a California patch which involves cutting a drywall piece with a 2 inch paper overhang and then patching the perimeter of your drywall piece
And if you have a drywall disaster where you need to cover a 8 inch hole or larger, you'll need to bust out the wood backing

Check out our YouTube video
If you want more detail about how to go about a kitchen demolition we do have a video explaining these tips in full so be sure to check that out by CLICKING HERE!