2012-07-23 Small Pantry

You may recall in my first page in this series that we planned to remove this old pantry.
It's too small and we hope there's room for a new, larger pantry on the opposite wall.
Replacing this one with a larger one elsewhere will give us room for more cabinets and counters.



Linda began demolishing this wall but had to stop until I could remove the propane range.



You can't see it in this photo I took after I cut the line.  But the line was crooked, bent at a 90 degree angle by the installers.  It was so crimped, I wondered that it even worked.  After I cut off the excess (in the photo beow), I used a flaring tool after putting a new flare fitting on the pipe.  I'm told the code doesn't allow for a compression fitting.



There wasn't a shut-off valve either.  So I provided one plus a flex-line which the installers should have provided.
After tightening everything up and turning the gas back on, I soaped all the lines to look for leaks.  There weren't any.  After bleeding the lines, the range worked again as expected.



Once I removed all the studs, we discovered the drywall above will have to be replaced.  Fortunately, my son-in-law is a professional at that.  He told me he will take a look at this for me.
Notice the stud on the left wall.  This was formerly doubled.  I was able to remove one of them which gave us an additional 3 1/2 inches of clearance.  And I was able to leave the 3-way switch where it was.



Once the bottom plates were removed I had to find something to fill the gap which left the sub-floor exposed.



We found some 5/8" MDF at Lowe's.  It was only 24 inches, just the right size and price.  I used a Skil saw to rip enough to bring it back up to floor level.



 
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