Lots of Help

I just wanted to start by thanking everyone who helped today (and yesterday, of course). I thought we would have too little help, but we, in fact, had too much. All of the trash was taken out in an instant. Before I knew it the ceiling tiles were coming down and the large dressers were getting smashed down into little tiny dumpster sized pieces by people very enthusiastic about breaking things. The living room was cleared and I was running out of duties before I knew it.

We spent the rest of the day taking down walls. A few people took down the wood paneling and a few people came up behind them to smash walls (everyone was very into smashing). The majority of the walls are down in the living room now. All that we left was one little piece of wood paneling (which we ran out of time to take down).

There was also a crew working on the bathroom at the same time. They peeled off the existing wall and found another layer of wall and faux tile under the current wall. It was very strange IMO. The tub surround (which we hoped to save until we can afford to re-tile) was unsavable and ripped apart as it came down. The bathroom is still a mess. But its probably best to keep the walls up in the bathroom until last so we can have some privacy.

We got so much done today and I am so grateful to everyone who came out. The dumpster is mostly full. I don't know if we are going to need to get it emptied before next weekend. Hopefully we can fit everything in it to avoid an extra charge.

View the February 27th Album here.

The Dumpster Fairie Was Here

We got the dumpster today. But since it came in the morning and I had to work I didn't get to participate in the trash dumping 'fun'. Tony went over with two friends, Ray and Nate. They got a surprising amount done. All the trash in the yard got dumped. That was a huge pile. We expected that to take the whole weekend. They also got a few odd jobs done, including taking down part of a broken wall outside and removing part of the fence. The wall left them some presents too. But I guess the walls like me better because the presents they got were broken bottles. Maybe inside walls are nicer.

Before

View the February 27th Album here.

Getting Ready for This Weekend

Today is a grumpy day. Its cold and I'm tired :/

Since we are getting the dumpster this weekend I spent today picking as much big stuff off the walls as possible. Dry wall can be bagged but pointy, naily boards can't. I started with the bathroom getting the mirrors, shower curtain and moldings off. Tony and I pried that metal closet out of the wall. It took a couple of swift kicks since it was wedged in real good and left a giant rectangle hole in the wall. We now have a bathroom with a view.

The rest of the night I pried as many leftover pieces of door frame as I could stand. Those moldings are nothing compared to the door frames. There must have been a few dozen nails in each. And they were wedged together pretty seamlessly so they were hard to get under.

Tony spent most of his night prying nails and bits of dry wall off the living room walls he could reached. He took down some of the living room ceiling too.

This weekend we are going to have a couple of long days. Tony thinks it will take the entire weekend to get the trash out of the back yard. I don't know. It depends on how many people we can get to help us. We've had a couple of volunteers so far on Saturday.

No new wall presents today. I did get fridge presents, but I don't know if it counts if you left them there yourself.

Not in the face!

Today was pretty fun. The day started out on a good foot. Tony's friend Turtle came over. While horsing around he pulled Tony through a wall by his arm. Do not underestimate the power of Tony's-through-walls as a demolition tool. It worked very well. The wall came tumbling down.
I finished up what was left in the kitchen. We decided to leave the wall on the outside of the staircase up so no one would fall down (that would be bad(and it would most likely be me)). The walls gave us more presents today :) When I was taking down the wall by the built in shelf I found a paper doll house.

Tony took down most of the wall dividing the pantry and the kitchen. Its just a big open space now. When we put the walls back up we are going to extend the cabinets already there and put only one entrance into the pantry instead of the thirty that were there. In the process of taking down the pantry it took down a piece of Tony's face. He hit himself with a crowbar. It left a nice little mark, no stitches needed though.

Turtle threw out an interesting idea for the living room. Maybe we could have cathedral ceilings instead of a flat ceiling. It would make it feel bigger. I really like the idea and I hope we can do it.

The place is crowded with trash now. We need to get a dumpster or we will have no more room to work. The rest of the living room is choked off by trash bags and packed up stuff.

View the February 21st Album here.

Kitchen

Today we started on the kitchen. Tony started on the pantry alone, being as its so small and only one person can really work on it comfortably.

Tony tore through the walls and ceiling, all of it being rotten. He had torn practically all of the walls down in the pantry in the time it took me to take down one kitchen wall. The kitchen walls were a pain though. They are covered in this faux tile latex covering. So I had to tear through that and then the walls.

We found no new presents in the walls today. But we are plotting to leave some. Bwa, ha, ha.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my last post, many of the ceilings, despite the fact they are going to be a pain in the ass, are going to have to be replaced. Most of them are covered in dried up mold from when the ceiling leaked. Anyway, nothing terribly exciting this weekend, just knocking down more walls.

VD

Happy Valentines Day. No work.

Goodbye Circus Wallpaper

I've had a very busy week and hadn't gotten anytime to update my blog. Gah! Anyway, since I'm posting so late I'm just going to go over what happened last weekend all in one post.

When we got to the house on Saturday Tony's mom was there. She stayed and helped clean up the mess we were making for a little bit. We spent the day tearing down the walls in the small bedroom. It all went pretty smoothly except for the fact that there were weird... things in the walls. Tony found an old can of bug spray (the really old ones like in cartoons with the pump handles) and a bottle that looked like it may have had Pepto Bismol in it. That was a lot better than the presents the walls gave me. A family of paper wasps. At one point yanking one to the window frames off the window my face was about six inches from were half a dozen wasps were chilling. Fortunately since the weather was still cold out the were lethargic and didn't sting me mercilessly for waking them up. Tony smashed them after I strategically retreated behind him. Hey, you would have panicked too it you'd almost gotten a face full of wasp stingers. After day one the small bedroom was conquered. Goodbye strange circus wallpaper.

Sunday we worked on the larger bedroom. We were working with limited time (I had a party to go to) and we thought that since we defeated the other bedroom the day before the other bedroom would be a snitch. But we didn't count on the closet.

The closet occupied most of Tony's time on Sunday. It was constructed with, somewhere in the neighborhood of, 50,000 nails. Calling it excessive is an understatement. In the middle of the day Tony practically gave it the finger and took a sledgehammer to it. That humbled the closet a little bit more. But we didn't get the room completely done. I guess everyday can't be victory.

On Monday we came back, finished the bedroom and cleaned up the dry wall. The living room in full of trash bags of dry wall. I don't think the garbage men will take them all. We decided to start on the kitchen next. Tony's friend Turtle said he will help this weekend, so hopefully we can knock that whle room out.

View the February 8th Album here.

Real Life Sims

This week's goal is to take down the sheet rock in the small bedroom. Tony I continued what Tony started yesterday. He already took down several of the moldings for the room so I have a head start. Huzzah. With all the walls coming down, the house is starting to look quite skeletal.

Tony and I discussed possible floor plan changes to accommodate both a decent bathroom and a standard-sized counter kitchen. Possible ideas were to make the bathroom longer by taking out the pantry and putting the bathroom door where the counters end. That would mean no pantry though. Plus there is a very odd window that had been cut off by the back wall of the pantry that would be in the bathroom, not hidden in the pantry. Double plus, the pantry floor is a mess and we don't know how well it will clean up. The second thought was take out the hall, make the two bedrooms one big room and put the entrance to the bathroom where the hall opens to the second bedroom. That would make the bathroom longer, but I still don't know if we can fit the counters in. Plus I wanted Tony's birds in a separate room, because if they keep me up all night when we move in I may end up eating them one night. We were stumped, at least for last night. I'm kind of resigned to the same floor plan but having it clean and nice looking.

I think I'm going to try to use The Sims to figure out a decent floor plan. I love practical uses for video game addictions.

We also decided to save getting the insulation in the attic for last. Having it up there isn't doing any harm, in fact its helping keep the place warm. So we're going to concentrate on removing sheet rock first.

Hulk

Today was very productive. Tony and I got all of the boxes from the bedroom into the basement. So now that room is cleared out. He also started tearing down the walls between the bedrooms. I say 'tearing' but it was more like a skinny, paler, red headed Hulk with a crowbar smashing through the walls. He said he envisioned himself as a giant 80's cartoon character smashing through buildings.

I got most of the hall done. When I got to the arch separating the rooms (the part with the cabinet) it turned out to be much more complex than the rest. I decided to save it for later since my arms were killing me and Tony wanted to go.

The trash in the back yard is becoming overwhelming. We are going to have to get it taken away, either by dumpster or Got Junk people. We need to get rates on dumpsters.

We saw Mike later at a Super Bowl party (yay football!) and he told us that ceilings were a pain in the butt. He said to save as many as possible, because we'll either be lifting heavy ass sheet rock above our heads or we'll have to rent a lift (and that's still a pain in the butt). Good thing he told us because we planned on tearing them all down. Tony also asked him how much it would cost for his electric crew to re-wire the house. He said between $1500 to $2000 and it would be done in two days. If we have the money i think we should do it. I don't want to muddle through it and end up killing ourselves or burning the house down.


So the plan is 1) get all walls down 2) get insulation out of the attic 3) have house re-wired 4) fix ceilings or put up new ceilings where needed 5) put new insulation in the ceiling 6) put up new walls with wall insulation

View the February 1st Album here.