MAYWOOD CLEANUP III-THE KITCHEN

This posting continues the cleanup of the Maywood house last summer.  We(my two daughters and myself, a painter and handyman) converged onto the property for 3 weeks to ready the house for the real estate market.

 

In the kitchen, I had one point in my favor.  When I originally bought the house, I painted the walls, cabinets and baseboards enamel high gloss oil paint.  Oil paint is more of a challenge when painting, but the coat of paint has much more structural integrity.  Any area around water holds up so much better with the enamel paint.

 

Looking at the following pictures taken by my dear friend, you will see that this kitchen is disgustingly dirty.  All lot of elbow grease would be needed to bring it back to life.

Under the sink, the back was knocked out to get to the pipes.  Remember that this house was built in 1939.  This is the original sink.  Our fine handyman cut a piece of wood out and screwed it to the back of the wall.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture.

The kitchen stove appeared to have been caught on fire.  It was one of the first items to be removed to the alley.  This area is great for the junkman that drives up and down the alley on garbage day.  The stove didn't last one day.  The house would now go on the market without a stove.



 

More grease and lots of grime!  Notice the caning in the upper part of the cabinet door.  Because this is on an outside wall, I'm sure the circulation helped in letting warmer air in to avoid frozen water pipes.

This bottom cabinet sliding door was kicked out and broken leaving a gaping hole.  Not too attractive?  I removed its companion door.

I put up the cherry border before I moved out in 2000.  I didn't have the time to remove it.

This is a close-up of the above cabinet door.  Years and years of dirt were soon coming to an end.

This architectural radiator cover was full of rust.  This picture was taken after I cleaned the dirt that had accumulated.  I couldn't see the rust before I cleaned it.   Once the rust was sanded off by my oldest daughter, a coat of gray primer spruced it back up.  I realized that I didn't take an 'after' picture. 
 

 

With buckets in hand and 2 bottles of lavender scented Pine-sol, we got down to business.  Starting with the ceiling, everything was washed down and rinsed twice.  The bright whiteness came back.  I did have to repaint the baseboards.  They were so banged up and black that no amount of scrubbing would have made them presentable.

The only way the cabinet could have been fixed would have been to take it to a millwright to rebuild one. Instead, I picked up 4 baskets at Wal-Mart to place on the two shelves.  I think they present a fresher look to the kitchen.  The open concept cabinet shows well.

 

The linoleum came back too with vigorous scrubbing.



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The Pine-sol did the trick.

The sink area was re-grouted.

A view from the dining room.

 

A view from the hallway.

 

I can't believe that we got back to the original shine on the vintage sink.

 







A much cleaner look.  Our work paid off.
 

And the final picture taken by the realtor.

 

Granted, the new owner will probably want to make drastic upgrades to the kitchen, but at least when purchased, the kitchen was sparkling clean.

 

Keep an eye out for a future posting, Maywood-Basement Part IV.