The Kitchen Remodel begins

Technically, it had begun a few weeks ago, with a trip to Ikea and purchasing of the new cabinets. They are, thanks to Suzanne, mostly assembled and scattered throughout the house. But, last night, the project began in earnest. We figured we'd begin with the wall with the refrigerator before moving on to try and tackle the rest of the kitchen.

Before Photo #1

Before Photo #2. You'll note the hole in the soffet above the pantry. We wondered if we could go to full height in this portion of the kitchen, so, made a 'viewing window' and it sure did look like all that ran back there was a few electrical wires. So, we bought full-height cabinets and planned on going all the way up to the ceiling.

The base cabinets and wall cabinents have been removed. The top wall cabinet was a pain in the ass; it was nailed to the pantry and the cabinet above the refrigerator and it took a lot of work to get it out of there.

and this picture shows problems a), b) and c) that we're working through currently.

Problem a) is the big one, this pipe is for our central vac system, the corner you're looking at is above the refrigerator (thus, I didn't see it though the 'viewing window). So, we'll either have to cut the cabinet around that or do something with the pipe (the top part extends up above the ceiling to the second floor, so, this might be a possibility).

Problems b) and c) are the drywall and the electrical wires. Going to have a drywall guy come in and redo the ceiling and wall, and hope that he has a good idea or two about the wires as well. I hope we don't, but, we might have to have an electrician come in and rewire/move a few things.