Since buying this house in 2016,  I knew that the source of the water damage was the failed flat roof on the addition above the kitchen.   I knew it leaked bad, and I knew it leaked for a long time. 

    What I did not know for sure, but strongly suspected, was that the water was also running down around the outside of the chimney on the back wall of the kitchen.  The demo two weeks ago confirmed this.  Water had been pouring down the outside of the chimney because there was no roof slope  or flashing to divert it away or around the chimney.

The water not only rotted/destroyed the kitchen floor and back wall, but it eroded the stone foundation and the timber that acted as a sill for the rear wall to be built on.  See this photo:

 
There was nothing left to start building off of.

Rob and I had to pour concrete around the chimney and create a place to attach a  2 x 8  pressure treated sill plate.  From there we were able to create a pressure treated "header" type beam or ledger board. This was made from two 2 X 8's  sandwiching a piece of 3/4" plywood.

Finally we were able to install more floor joists and start framing out the new rear wall and doorway.

 

Taking down the cabinets today, you can see from this photo that the uppers were just shelves with vertical wood strips that the doors hung from:

The soffits above the cabinets were constructed from 2X3's and plywood.  Materials that did not exist in the 1800's , so no tears were shed in destroying them.

The general consensus between Rob and I was that the sink was DAMN heavy!

Rob then stripped the walls down to the studs, and even removed 4 or 5 compromised studs.

Next week is Easter, so we will resume in two weeks with the rear wall reconstruct and then new floor joists.  Stay tuned.

Kitchen demo has begun.  I took a few "before" photos of the kitchen cabinets so as to be able to re-create them when we're done.

I seems that the upper cabinets are actually not cabinets at all, but rather shelving with glass doors covering them.  The 3/4" wood shelves run the full width of the wall from the corner to the doorway. Then there are vertical trim pieces attached to the shelves to which the glass doors are hinged.

There are no backs or internal partition walls, which leads me to think that the glass doors were added at a later date.

The lower cabinets are constructed of 1/4" plywood  with "beadboard" fastened to the faces of the doors. The countertop appears to be a thick tar or glue backed linoleum. The crystal pull knobs may be the only part of these lowers that will be re-used.

Most of  these materials are much too modern to be original to the 1800's kitcken.  I have no doubt that the sink is original, and it will certainly be re-used. 

On the topic of the sink. I also noticed that it was not centered under the kitchen window.  It is offset to the left quite a bit.  I think this was done later on to accommodate a refrigerator  on the right once fridges were invented.   I'll be putting it back to the correct centered position, as our fridge will be against the wall with the double glass doors.