Almost Done with Demo

The fun with demo continues.  We are on day 10 today.  Some parts go quickly, like the carpets in this room, and others not so quickly, like the carpet tack board thingys that I learned how to use a flat blade shovel to remove.  Eventually you realize it's time to go get food and sleep because you have lost your sense of reason.  For instance, I realized I should have just moved the seed starts instead of working around them.  That was my clue that day.  Other days have been less obvious.  

Somehow the act of just hanging out in the yard and on the porch is exhausting for the dogs.  They no longer harass us when we sit down to stare at the tv.  They snore loudly and can barely be awakened to go outside before we go upstairs to sleep.  

We continue to discover all kinds of evidence of past interesting construction decisions.  Often these are electrical.  Which makes us really happy that the electrician is coming on Monday to rewire the entire house.  Even he commented on the wiring.  

Most of the past 10 days I have battled with this room.  It will become the room where I put my piano and my sewing machine.  It fought the demo process the entire way.  Most of the sheetrock came off in pieces smaller than my fist.  Except for a giant chunk of the ceiling.  Which fought back by dropping some crap in my eye.  Possibly literally.  There were some serious mouse nests in the insulation.  

When I finished that room I got to suit up as my other persona, the insulation removal queen.  Insulation sucks to work with.  It's glass.  Which means it itches like crazy when it gets into your skin.  Which it does.  Even with my special white suit.  

While I was battling my room, Chad had his own special room across the hall.  Different range of problems there.  This room will become an office.  There was no insulation in the exterior walls.  And the short wall there?  Yeah, it wasn't really a wall.  No connection beyond superficial to the ceiling.  But it had lots of electrical special choices represented.  And three layers of wall coverings.  So we were moving at about the same speed.  And it was disheartening.  

We made it upstairs about five days later than planned.  And found some treasures in the crawl space above the arctic entry.  He examined all the paint and stuff and most of it went out to the dumpster.  

Every now and then we find a reminder of the era that the house was constructed during and we hypothesize about how some plywood from the local air force base ended up as subflooring.  

And then I would go back downstairs and do some more battle with my room.  

And so would Chad.  Every little bit helps.  That's my mantra.  Along with some sailor swearing.  Mostly Chad stared in disbelief.  

Last weekend we got a little hand up.  Three boys in their 20s can do a lot of destruction while you are away for a half hour getting pizza.  The local pizza place has been around for 50 years.  Which is saying a lot for here.  And it's delicious.  Glad the boys brought their own beer.  

It took us most of the next 5 days to get it to this state upstairs.  We're now on our third dumpster.  We still have some flooring to pull up and a little more demo in places like the arctic entry.    Did I mention the discovery of eight layers of flooring upstairs?  We have about half pulled out so far.   

Little spaces like closets can really be fun.  Especially when you realize that they were added after some of the layers of flooring or walls or who knows.  This is the closet under the stairs in my special room.  I might have karate kicked the plywood on this wall.  It was gratifying.  

At some point the privacy in the bathroom during demo goes way down.  Don't worry, he's just washing his hands.  

The bathroom gets a partial facelift now and some more later.  My current mission is to find an 18 x 36 window to replace the special existing one.  It's not a standard size (none of ours are) but we can't really change this one.  

We sleep like dead rocks every night.  It's mentally exhausting to keep reformulating the plan.  I'm looking forward to the electrician work so I can start to think about the yard.  I think I will start with the front.  It's tiny.  And there's no electrical or fence work to wait on.  

In the Beginning...

Lots of beginnings lately; the start of the sunny season, which means tons of biking and running and seed planting.  To keep myself sane I carve out some yoga and meditation time.  Somehow there are no biking pictures, I think I am just so busy riding and being elated at being on my bike and flying down the trails that it doesn't even occur to me to take pictures.  But the biggest beginning, the one that rules our lives for the next 60 days and lingers for at least a year.....the HOUSE.  Oh yeah, and the ginormous back yard.  Where Percy is only free when someone is actively watching her.  Don't let that back fence deceive you, it may as well be made of paper. I fear a stiff breeze blowing it over.   

I took two days off work to help the man.  I do all the paperwork and fun stuff with the bank and he gets to rule the remodel.  His biggest project to date.  We're taking it back to the studs.  Where there are studs.  Other places are back to whatever is there instead of studs.  He's about to open up the most interesting wall in the house.   

Everything in this kitchen is now in the dump.  Including the ceiling and the kitchen sink.  It all goes.  To say what we found was amazing is an understatement.  

Everything.  Including the kitchen sink.  We were on to the second dumpster on the second day.  

See his amazement?  He can't believe what's behind some of these walls.  Layers of walls.  Like three layers.  

I have my own room of wonder across the hall from his.  Ever swing a demo hammer at a wall and have it bounce off?  Repeatedly?  I can still feel it in my collar bones.  Also, I'm short.  I can't actually reach the top of the walls without a ladder.  Which proves to have interesting results.  The newer drywall sucks.  It comes off in pieces the size of your fist.  Or smaller.  The older stuff is a couple square feet at a time.  

The floors also had three layers of coverings in places.  Rugs are actually two layers, the rug and the pad.  Over tiles and ... we'er still waiting to see what's under these.  We're hoping to get up the second floor tonight.  Racing to get ready for the electrician.  Which means somehow we have to make a range hood and bathroom fan appear this week.  Do you know what the selections are like for those in this town?  Neither did I.  Until now.  And shipping to Alaska....I'm pretty sure I have complained about that before.  

And this is how we all feel at the end of every day.  They are so happy to have a yard to play in.  And we love the new brewery down the street.  But they really need a bike rack.