Progress Feels Good

I am getting closer to hanging some drywall.  Not all of the kitchen is getting drywall.  A few of the walls are in good shape and/or covered by cabinets.  The bad walls will be covered with 1/2" drywall. The whole room isnt ready yet, but the ceiling is ready and I have another wall that is now ready too.  This wall is the topic of this blog post.
The wall has a doorway and a cubby hole for the fridge.  We noticed recently that the wall had a bow in it.  Upon closer inspection we noticed that it was actually built-up plaster.  It had apparently been skim coated, but the closer you got to the floor the thicker the "skim coat" got.  This was going to cause problems when we added a layer of drywall.

The original plaster is darker grey.  The extra-thick  skim coat is white.

We decided to fix it the "right way" so I demo'd this portion of the wall today.  The pictures below are some in-progress pics.

After the demo was complete, I ripped some 2x4s to act a furring strips.

All done.  Wall demolished, mess cleaned up, and furring strips installed. You can also see  some old electrical conduit and an old galvanized pipe running up to the second story.  Its purpose is unknown.

Furring strips attached to the 2x4 studs.