Old Kitchen Transformation - Phase Two (Walls & Ceiling)

I had contacted an electrician (recommended by a friend) to upgrade the electrical service from 100 amps to 200 amps, driven by my plans for an electric pottery kiln (a 50-amp circuit), my electric clothes dryer (a 30-amp circuit; they had been using gas), and my new all-electric kitchen (a 30-amp circuit for the wall oven, and a 40-amp circuit for the smooth-top cooktop, versus the old gas range that had been in the house).  I wanted to get the wiring sorted out before the electrician installed the new breaker box, and so pushed to get the room finished (most of the house wiring converged on the room because that was where the breaker panel was).  As it turned out, I had plenty of time, because the electrician apparently had other things to do.

I started out building inner stud walls two inches thick to add insulation (and 3.5 inches thick where the electrical panel was, to allow plenty of room for routing the electrical cables).  Because I wanted better access to run the new kitchen wiring later (rather than struggling to get all those circuits into the main outdoor panel), I bought a 100-amp sub-panel from amazon and surface-mounted that on a piece of 3/4" plywood on a partition wall (see photo).  Doing this, I could bring the cables in from the side of the panel, rather than pulling them all in from the top, where there was much less room.  I then added another stud wall to the little wall holding the sub-panel, doubling its thickness, so that the sub-panel would be flush with the finished wall.  I continued to reroute cables (that had been in the old removed drop ceiling) through holes drilled in the top plate of the new inner wall that I had constructed in front of the main panel.

I continued to add my two-inch thick inner wall all around the room, and began work in the ceiling.  In the first photo. you can see two recessed cans (for recessed lighting):  the distant one is directly over where a kitchen-size sink will go, and the closer one is directly over where the pottery kiln will sit.  There is a framed opening between those two lights where an attic exhaust fan will be placed; the kiln puts out a lot of heat, and at least in the summer, all that heat must be sucked out, in this case into the attic, where it will be pulled out through a wind-driven roof ventilator.  To the left of the fan is a blue plastic mounting box for a general illumination ceiling light.

This next photo is on the left side of the room, a drop soffit for four recessed flood lights that will illuminate a work bench.  The photo after that shows the first sheet of drywall up at the far end of the room, and at the near end of the ceiling, an opening for permanent access to this end of the attic (the other hatch is at the far end of the house, and because the roof is framed with trusses, it's hard to move around up there).

Drywall went up without a problem, and finally I could see what the room really looked like.

The drywall wasn't quite up everywhere, as I was still waiting for the electrician, who needed access to the inside of the main breaker panel.  And I was still rerouting cables and running new circuits.

None of the windows in the house had been trimmed out with jams and molding; they were cheaply finished with drywall over the rough framing.  Not a big fan of that, so I will trim out my new windows, complete with sills (to put things on, and the cats like them).

I built three shelf units to go over the future work bench, and installed those.  They will be used for pottery glazes and who knows what else; you can't have too much horizontal storage.  The rough workbench holding my temporary kitchen was originally built to test kitchen countertop height (40"), and depth (30"), which dimensions I will be keeping in my new kitchen (and also the finished cabinet/countertop for the pottery studio).  Oh, and did I mention the yellow paint?  The rest of the house (except for the home theater) will be off-white, so the pottery studio gets the token dash of color!

With the new electrical panel finally installed, drywall work could be completed.  I ran circuits for the new kitchen (oven, cooktop, refrigerator, dishwasher, and two 20-amp receptacle circuits) before closing up the wall.  I also installed blue plastic conduit from the sub-panel cavity up to the attic so I wouldn't have to tear off the drywall for future circuits (just feed the wire through the conduit/tubes).  I have since run two other sub-panel circuits through the conduit: a 20-amp GFCI circuit for the new bathrooms—the existing 15-amp circuit was flaky, and a 15-amp circuit for new hall/living room lighting.

This final photo shows what it looks like from the outside, with the stucco patched up around the new windows and breaker panel, with an elastomeric stucco paint applied (new color), and with the trim scraped and power-washed and solid-stained a new color to match the outside window color (all the old trim was white).  The whole house needs the same treatment.