Rolling up the carpet Saturday morning because the mess will be easier to clean up.
And the demolition begins! Here we are in the living room pulling off paneling. Each wall was different. Some walls had two layers of wood paneling; some walls had one layer of drywall and one of wood paneling; some walls one layer of dywall and two layers of paneling; and one wall had a layer of brick veneer, one layer of dywall and one layer of wood paneling. We may have gained 10 square feet or more in floor space during the demo!
Here are a couple of photos of the different wallpaper patterns that we found.
There was some pencil writing under the brick-work that said Dave+Carole in a heart.
We also found an old paper hornet/wasp nest!
The big beam in the middle of the room is being supported by a 2x4 on either end and supports the roof trusses.
The ceiling was made of 1/4" thick drywall. No wonder the ceiling was wavy!
We found some old signs of rats, too.
We vacuumed up as much of the mess as we could with our new wet-dry shop-vac.
On Monday we took down the pole in the back yard. First, we tied it off so it was less likely to fall on the house. We started with the reciprocating saw but didn't make much progress. I burned up a blade right away so we tried the jackhammer. My brother-in-law's roommate and I traded shifts on the jack-o-fun-ride-hammer.
The pole had way too much concrete around it so we used the saw again. After two more blades, the pole came down.
My spouse found a bee that had been caught my a spider the same color as the yellow poppies!
Many thanks to the brother-in-law and his roommate! Together we managed to lower our standard of living even more! Seriously though, the demo was so much easier with these two slamming holes in stuff.
Now we just need to talk to the consultant guy. Once he comes, maybe we can actually start putting things together again. We're crossing our fingers we can move everything we want to move and not bring the house crashing down on our heads.
Great pictures! Looks like a blast. Must feel good to peel away all of that old crap and get down to the structure. Some nice biological finds as well.
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ReplyDeleteHave a party and then when the people arrive tell them no one gets any beer until the pole has been dug out. Sit on the keg if you have to. I bet that will work, well maybe not if you buy light beer... On cutting metal with a sawsall if the blades are turning blue and dull slow the saw down, slow as you can. If you are simply knocking all the teeth off well... Lenox makes a good metal blade, I cut a railroad rail in two with just one but I used oil and had the saw running at its slowest speed. Oh and it took a long f**king time. I think you might be screwed when that structure guy sees the support for that beam. Add a 4x4 on either end, even if only temporarily. Think how little that wall would have to move in an earthquake to drop all ceiling support. Rock'n finds in the walls. We also had love notes drawn on the inner layers of our walls. Must be the thing to do. We wrote some of our own before sealing it up. They were, ah, explicit. Should make good reading for the next guy...
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