The Never Ending Bedroom Remodel...Demolition Time!

March 20th, 2010 marked demo day one.  

We had heard that you could just knock off the plaster and leave up the lathe, somehow fish through insulation behind the lathe and just drywall over the lathe....about a day day into it we discovered the lathe was far from level enough to hang drywall over the top of and there was no way to get insulation behind it so we ended up deciding that we would demo that too.  

after carefully removing all the trim work from the room we began the demo process....Of course in proper construction attire, facemask...check... sandals, err...check...

removing the plaster was a lot of work but once we figured out to beat it with a hammer first then use the pry bar behind it to knock off large chunks it went much faster.  

I think I quit helping around this point with demo on the plaster as the ceiling was creating far too much dust for me.  

we got the plaster out of the house by lowering the garbage can out the window to pregnant me standing in a trailer with a tarp on it, I'd dump it and back up Tony would drag the can to fill it again.  

What a mess!

As dirty, dusty, messy and sweaty as demo is, its also fun, the best way to relieve frustration is to whack at a wall with a hammer or what ever tool you need to use.  (It came at a perfect time in pregnancy where I just started to get in the mood where I didn't want to deal with people's crap, which makes for great force behind your hits)  In just one day we managed to knock down the plaster from all but the top 1/8 of the walls and the ceiling.  Tony did that part by himself  over the next week because of the incredible amount of dust.  Who knows how horrible that was to breathe in while I was pregnant, even with a mask it clung to your clothing and hair like you wouldn't believe.  

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

1.Camera Phone

Taken yesterday at our family BBQ get together, Addison already trying to steal cigarettes from Grandpa when he's not looking.  We had the first BBQ of 2011 yesterday at my Uncle Jimmy & his Fiancée Dawn's house.  Jimmy was diagnosed with cancer about 18 months ago and at this point he is terminal, he is receiving hospice care in his home, they estimate him to have less than week's left.  It is incredibly hard to watch someone you love waste away and sad to think that yesterday was probably the last time I will see him.   

2. Camera

I like to call this "Let Me Help You Momma".  

3. Shoes

These would be my favorite pair of black pumps, I never wear them, I rarely wear anything but tennis shoes these days.  You're going to catch me vacuuming in them.

4. Chair

I found this old children's wooden rocking chair when cleaning out the upstairs storage room in the house, it's a little wobbly with its loose nails and needs a bit of cleaning up possibly a coat of paint and it will be the perfect chair for Little Miss Thang.  Her Great Grandpa probably used it as a child!  

5. Imperfection

This is Addison's work in progress of a bedroom, its not perfect by any means.  For a couple of first time demo/remodeling Do-It-Yourselfers it is so much better, so far, than we had thought it was going to turn out.  Sure the drywall isn't perfect, the door will never be straight, and the floors will not be perfect but its perfect for us and we are beyond proud of what we have done!  

The Never Ending Bedroom Remodel...where we started.

The house we live in was once my Great-Grandparents house, my own Grandpa was raised in this house.  Needless to say its old, and I love it.  Being old also needs an incredible amount of updates, nothing is horrid but most things are out of date, incredibly out of date and by no means modern.  The worst off of the whole house is the upstairs, there is a bedroom downstairs so no one has used the upstairs at all in at least 11 or so years, possibly more.  I would venture a guess that the upstairs hasn't been updated since my Great Grandparents bought the house.  Its pretty bad.  We did a quick clean on it when we moved in and wanted to get ourselves moved up there but quickly lost steam on the ripping down wallpaper when we realized the walls all needed to be demoed since they were lathe and plaster and just falling apart in some rooms and cracked beyond repair in others.  Not to mention the fact that there is ZERO insulation between the walls and the exterior of the house...This is Michigan it gets pretty freekin' cold up there in the winter.  The only heat source for the upstairs are floor vents that allow the heat to rise from the downstairs area.  (I told you it was old.)

Around month 4 of my pregnancy we decided it was time to start thinking about preparing a nursery. (A nursery that at 7 months of age we are still yet to finish for a baby to use!) :)  We chose the smallest of the 4 upstairs bedrooms thinking that when Addison gets older, needs a larger room and/or we have another child who needs a crib we will remodel another room for her to have a big girl room and keep the nursery for a second baby.  So the nursery will be a gender neutral theme for anything that can be reused for another baby, thinking yellow or green walls and farm animal theme.  That's the plan.  The room we picked is small, when I say small I mean small, its roughly 8ft by 11ft or something like that (I'll pay more attention to that detail when I need a rug I promise.)  There is no closet, two tall floor to almost ceiling windows, and no electrical outlets.  This room is actually the room that was my Grandpa's bedroom when he was a kid.  I joked with him that he couldn't have owned much more than a dresser and a twin bed its so small!

Before we got started on demo we cleared the room of everything and snapped some before shots.  The photos are at weird angles because of the size of the room its impossible to photograph in one shot.

wood floors need refinishing, light sconce on the wall is the only light/electricity source in the room, walls have got to go!
I am in love with the old wood trim so we salvaged it so that I could repair and reuse it.  

trim has pretty detail in the corners but is hard to see because of old pealing wall paper, also showing the floor vent and more of the old floors. 

Floor vent, I will be refinishing this I believe white though I haven't decided yet.  

there are lots of areas in this house where there wasn't room for complete trim around door/window frames, this will remain the same as there is no fix other than moving the door.

even the ceiling was blessed with wallpaper

More of the door frame/window combination

other window frame.

These were taken March 19, 2010....Stay tuned for our slow progress over the past year!