Dining Room and Hallway Demo, First Floor – Part 1
Demo day on the first floor! We’re opening up the walls between the dining room and the main hall. It’s exciting in a lot of ways, in that this is our first big bit of demo on this floor!
A lot of the morning involved prep work: moving things to one side, clearing out all the “stuff” in both rooms, and relocating a lot of things into our current bedroom (in the living room).
Clearing out the wall by the bunny area.
Most everything we’ve tucked away, safely in the bedroom/living room… and taped up some plastic sheeting to keep out the dust. Fingers crossed that this holds up.
We went with a super thin 0.3ml sheet – which made it easier to use/hang. But I might be tempted to go with something just a little thicker next time around.
And it begins!
Demo work in the dining room.
I have to say – at this point, I feel confident enough in my demo skills to say that I am good at it. At least in terms of removing plaster, I feel like I’ve got a good system with peeling off the plaster using a crowbar, and simply sliding/prying a lot of it off.
Liz, looking over her handiwork.
The dusty living room, with most of our things under some plastic.
I should note that today was an incredibly hot day. Temps were in the high 90’s, and being inside was pretty awful. To prevent the dust from gumming up our portable AC unit, we had to turn that guy off… and throw him under some plastic as well.
So all day today – no cool air. Just a lot of heat, a lot of dust, and heavy things falling down.
Lathe removed, and a ceiling Liz is revealed.
Another view of the hall area, sans wall.
Clearing lathe from the dining room.
Taking a lunch break in the basement, which was by far much cleaner and much cooler. We began to refer to this as “the lounge.”
All three of us were dripping with sweat, the entire day. I’m pretty sure we all soaked our shirts through, and just got used to sweat dripping constantly off our faces. Super hot weekend.
Back at work upstairs.
Lathe all neatly stored.
So much plaster.
Liz found some handwriting, written on the wall. I’m not sure how old this might be – maybe back to the 50’s or 60’s? I like discovering old math.
While we were working downstairs, Bob had it way worse working up on the second floor (where it was even hotter). We had a fan going up there, but it didn’t seem to help much against the day.
Bob raised up a beam (by himself) and got more support for our office/turret ceiling.
We’re in better shape now, until we have time to revisit how to provide more support up there. Liz and I will be tackling the office floor demo soon, and we’ll be working around these supports for the time being.
Hallway way cleared and mostly cleaned.
Dining room, North wall mostly cleared and cleaned.
Dining room, South wall – almost cleared and cleaned.
Circa 5PM, Liz and I had the stark realization that we still had about 2 hours of cleaning up to do. Everyone was exhausted, and the prospect of cleaning up, moving everything out of the bedroom… and then moving it all back in tomorrow… seemed inefficient. And, honestly, overwhelming.
So we decided to drive out to Valpo, and to crash at Bob and Julie’s place. It would have taken us more time to try to make our place habitable, so the drive out made more sense. And also: air conditioning!
Liz and I cleaned up as best as we could, threw some things in a backpack, and headed out. On the way, we picked up some pizzas and spent a lovely night, sleeping in a lovely bed, enjoying the comforts of a clean house and strong AC.
Before bed, I joked to Liz that we literally ran away from our problems.
And am I glad we did.
Related:
Demo in the Master Bedroom
Big Bedroom Demo Day
Demo Day: Opening Up the Office Walls
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