That one Tuesday last February when everything went right on a kitchen gut job

We were demoing a 1980s kitchen in a Capilano bungalow and the tile backsplash came off in three whole sheets, no cracked drywall behind it at all. Has anyone else ever had a renovation day where nothing fought back for once?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathan_foster6016d ago

Hate to rain on the parade but that backsplash probably means someone glued tile straight to drywall with mastic and no waterproofing. Give it a year or two and that whole wall's gonna be a moldy mess behind the cabinets. Sounds like a win now but you might be coming back to fix some real damage later.

taylor92916d ago

@nathan_foster60 actually makes a solid point there. My own experience says that perfect demo days usually mean someone cut a corner somewhere earlier that you're about to inherit. Like finding a brand new subfloor that was laid right over an old rotting one, looks clean until you step on the wrong spot six months later. That backsplash coming off clean probably means there's no cement board or proper waterproofing behind it, just like Nathan said. In my book, a truly good renovation day is when you find the hidden problems early, not when everything looks easy. Your mileage may vary but I've learned to trust the hard days more than the smooth ones.

wyatt_green16d ago

Wait, are you saying my "perfect day" was actually just good at hiding future problems? That tracks with my luck honestly. Last month I celebrated a flawless drywall patch job until I realized I'd forgotten to cut the outlet hole. Spent an hour trying to fish out my phone from inside the wall. Now every "win" makes me paranoid I'm just missing the next disaster waiting to happen.