Prepping the Upstairs Hall

House day today – first time in a while. While Liz was in the basement working on windows, I decided to focus on the stretch of hallway on our second floor.

Been a while since I’ve done any demo. Nothing super crazy – just pulling up old boards, and cleaning things up with the shop vac.

As I took more boards away, there was less room to stand. Got a little tricky near the end there… and was actually reminding me of the guest room and master bedroom floor demo. Good times.

Boards gone and the joists cleaned out with the shop vac.

All the boards removed.

Also ended up clearing out some dead conduit and some old/cut gas pipes.

Liz finished up her window work for the day, and switched to the living room fireplace. Here, she’s cleaning the metal border: the top is untreated, and the bottom is what she’s gotten clean so far.

She also applied a chemical/paste to the interior, which should clean it up some.

Near the end of the day, Liz put together some nice yard lights she recently purchased.

They’re solar powered, and should recharge on their own. They also made a lovely little pattern, on our floor.

The lights, installed.

I had gotten things done around 4PM, and was debating trying to cut some plywood to put down. Liz astutely suggested I stop, and not keep pushing (which was good advice).

I always forget about the time needed to break things down and do cleanup. I wasn’t officially done done until closer to 5PM, and she made a good call.

One bummer: when trying to use the shop vac to clean up the second floor, I noticed it was shooting out a ton of dust. After a bit of testing, I realized the filter had slipped off. So what was happening was the shop vac was pulling in air, stirring up all the plaster and sawdust I’d collected all afternoon, and basically pushed that out into the air.

I’m not sure what happened, but we apparently got the wrong filters a while ago. It feels like it’s on tight, but a slight tug and it falls right off. Not sure how we didn’t run into this problem before.

Thankfully, I had most of the rooms protected upstairs. But my last act of cleaning up actually made things worse, and dampened my spirits. It was like completing a marathon, but in crossing the finish line… you end up knocking over the judge’s table. Not the greatest end to the day, is what I’m saying.

Related:
Top of the Stairs
Guest Room Floor Demo
Master Bedroom Floor Demo, Part 2
Master Bedroom Floor Demo, Part 1

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