A Little Demo And A Big Mess

Hmm….I thought Mike and I were taking it slower this time, lol.  We have been here for two weeks now and I have too many pictures to post in one update.  I will post the demo pictures now and on Thursday give you a new update.

Mike and I wanted to start with the garage so we can move some things out of the house.  We only got as far as taking apart the old workbench which was a bear.


Mike starts off using a heavy hammer:

Sadly that is not going to work.  The top of the old workbench was old the old wood flooring strips and it was tongue and groove and nailed in.  I pry the edges and Mike pops up the rest:

Time to get out the saw.  It's still too heavy to move:

Almost cut down:

And the last of it:

Finally we got the old work bench broken up after beating it, prying it and sawing it, lol.  Some things are just not as easy as they should be:

So now that we are starting to make a mess it's time to find a dumpster.  New area so new contractors.  Here is our first and "maybe" only dumpster:):)

Woo hoo….time to check out what kind of trouble we will find when we tackle the brick wall.  We have never taken out a brick wall before.  Always something new, lol.  Mike hits the top brick of the wall in the kitchen area.  This is straight stacked brick so hopefully it will come down neatly:

One full section is down and yes I am still cleaning up after Mike…after all these years, lol.  We got lucky and a wheelbarrow was left behind at this house.  It will be very useful:)

While I finish cleaning up, Mike has something else on his mind.  He wants to get the mantle down:

No pictures of that as I had to hold the other side up while Mike pried it away from the fireplace wall.  It just had some huge bolts that came out pretty easily:

OK back to the stacked brick:

Woo hoo…we are starting to see the living room from the kitchen:

Mike uses the cut off wheel to cut the rebar that is sticking out of the brick.  Let the sparks fly.  I always like these pictures although I stay far away.  We are leaving this part of the wall up for a buffer for the door.  We will eventually add sheetrock over the brick:

Here is the next wall to tackle.  This one is a staggered stack which won't be as neat to take out.  I just hope we can do it without renting heavy machines:

OK…looks like we are going for it.  Have sledgehammer…will break brick walls, lol.  We takes turns.  Mike takes the upper part and I do the lower part:

Brick is pretty darned stubborn.  It took a lot of hits just to break some out…and then the clean up was a lot…but we did pretty well that day.  From the kitchen side:

And the living room side:

The next day Mike works on the end of the wall.  We are only going that far as that is a utility closet between the kitchen and living room:

Mike chisels up the tile on the hearth:

My chance.  Hey sometimes I need a break from the clean up and Mike gets to rest:)

We have the bulk of the wall out:

Mike works on the hearth while Niki stretches.  We must be making her tired:

Ah…my mess to clean while Mike tried to level off the edge of this wall.  We need to make the corner as smooth as we can so we can add 2x4's and sheet rock.  It also took some direct banging with the hammer onto the brick to get this corner in god shape.  I did that while Mike directed me where to hit, lol:

The hearth is out:)

Yay…the brick that we are taking down is down…from the kitchen.  No more dungeon/prison feel:)

And from the living room:

We think it looks so much more open now:)  Now our plan is to add some studs and put some sheetrock up. This way the red brick will be gone from our view:).

We did take a break last week and drove around the area…and we also looked at flooring.  It seems we can never get away from stopping in at some type of home store.  We did pick out three different tiles that we like.  We are just waiting on a sample of the one to come in the mail….then we will decide.  We do like the area though so that was nice to find out:)  There are a lot of small towns within close driving distances which is kind of cool.

So that was the demo story…next up the sheetrock.  I will post again on Thursday for a new update.  I hope you all enjoyed this update.

Have a great week:)

Lisa