DEMO: Kitchen that will become our Dining Room

Rhys and Bobby totally dominated the kitchen demolition. It was impressive!  They turned our 1950s kitchen into studs and boards in one morning.  Once they finished, Andrew worked his tail off scraping up our flooring. What a transformation!

We are opening up the entrance to this space.  Instead of a pocket door, we will have an open floor plan between the Living Room and Dining area.  I don't think we want to make an archway, per say, but there will be something to define the two spaces.

DEMO: Opening up the Stairway

Since Mike and Ben have taken over the demo, things have really been moving fast.  They've done a lot more work on the interior of the house and we can really see the progress.  They opened up the stairwell, which totally made my day.  I love having the wall down and stairs exposed, instead of hidden behind a door.

BEFORE

BEFORE: The stairwell was hidden behind what looked like a closet door.

AFTER: Open and bright!

I had to add this picture below to the montage. 

Check out how the front entry looks with drywall - June 2014.  

Such a wonderful change!

DEMO: for the Dormer

Mike Anderson and his co-worker, Ben, have been working like crazy on our house. They have been taking advantage of the nice weather to demo the second floor and frame out the dormer.  We have decided to extend the dormer the length of the second story to create room for an additional bedroom upstairs.  We will have the master bedroom and bath, and then two guestrooms across the hall.  Dom went over and took some photos while the guys were working and said the view was incredible!  Now he wishes we were building another deck for the second floor.

our AMAZING view

 Hard at Work - We love these guys.

Here are a few pre- and post-demo photos to really show the progress the guys have made with the dormer.

BEFORE: Standing in guest room looking at the Master bedrm.

DEMO: Standing in guest room looking at the Master bedrm.

BEFORE - Guestroom built-in and closet -

DEMO - Guestroom built-in and closet

DEMO: Siding and Roof

We are excited to see even more progress on the exterior demo!  Mike has taken down the siding and roof. It is so cool to see the house stripped down to the boards. I think it looks pretty neat.  You can see how solidly the house was built... way back in 1952!

Sunlight shines through the roof into the Master Bedroom.  You can see the existing roofline, that will be opened up with the addition of the shed dormer. 

The arbor and grapes were a trademark of Dom's Grandma's house. While we are sad to see them go, I love seeing the empty space where our deck will be built.  We have ordered french doors that will lead from the dining area to the deck. They will be placed in about the same spot as the center window (that is boarded up).  It is going to be beautiful.

DEMO: Garage

The garage has come down!  Our contractor, Mike Anderson, has taken down three walls of the garage. We are turning the existing one-car garage into a two-car garage.  We will extend the garage West, towards the house, creating space for a mudroom and direct entry from the garage to the house.  This also means we will need to move the front door!

We Thank You!

We could not be more thankful to the guys who came over and volunteered their Saturday, helping us demo the house.  A HUGE THANK YOU to: Ryan Steele, Josh Condon, Zak Washburn, Jeff Zwick, Shawn Cleave, Rhys Konrad, Bobby Lemmon, Andrew Call, and Dave Welters. I wish I would have thought to take more photos.

As always, we are so thankful for our friend and contractor, Mike Anderson.  He supervised our demo party and was so impressed with the progress these guys made! 

Bobby geared up for Demo Day!

Kitchen coming down!

Rhys and Bob working on the Kitchen Demo

Walls are down!

Dom and Dave taking down the ceiling

Supervising 

A full dumpster!

DIY DEMO: Interior Demolition Continues...

We have been going to the house after work to try and get as much done before the real construction crew takes over.  There are so many sections of drywall to remove.  The corners and the pieces above the windows are so hard to take down. It can be pretty frustrating.  I keep saying, "We are almost done!".  Dom just laughs at me and shakes his head.

The dry wall near the ceiling poses its own set of challenges.  Dom really is the only one tall enough to tackle these portions of the house, but that doesn't stop me.  I balance upon a little stool.... that swivels, with crowbar and mallet in-hand.  I like to think of it as a type of abdominal workout, but it definitely isn't safe.

Front Entry

Its dirty, dusty, and freezing in here

Thank goodness he's tall

Dom's dad, Denny, came over last night to help us out.  He jumped right in with the skill saw and started taking out door frames.  He is more handy than Dom and I put together. An extra pair of hands really makes the job go by faster.  Denny even took down the kitchen cabinets, for us to put in the new garage.  I have tried twice to do this and gave up both times.  He made it look like a piece of cake.  Thanks Denny!