It has been a week since we started the demo work on our house, and man, it has come far! Here is a recap of what has happened since January 11th.
On Friday the 11th, I left for work, and Mike and his grandfather, Bob, started the demo. They removed a bank of cabinets from the east wall of the kitchen and started in on removal of drywall. The removal of the drywall (which should have been relatively quick and painless) turned into a tedious task. Most of the drywall in the house was very old, and instead of coming off in large pieces, it came off in tiny chunks. The fact that there were nails in it about every four inches (in some places less than that) did not make the process any easier.
On Saturday, we called in the reserves. My mom, Karla, and my dad, Rick, came out to help us. And boy, did they help us. By Saturday evening, Mike, Bob, Karla, Rick and I had the house stripped to bare studs, and we had filled our 40-yard bin from R&R Roll Off half way.
On Sunday, we finished up removing fixtures and any left-over drywall that was stuck to the studs. Then, we moved on to the part of the demo that we were dreading the most: the ceiling. The ceiling was insulated using blown-in insulation. My sister-in-law recommended that we wet the insulation down before removing the drywall on the ceiling to keep the dust down. It helped a lot, but the process was still not too fun.
Mike suited up in Tyvek coveralls, donned a respirator and goggles, and took a hose up into the attic. After giving the insulation a good spray down, we closed up the house, and left him to stomp the drywall from above. What a mess! When all was said and done, we were left with about eight inches of powdery-yuk all over the floor. A note to my readers: NEVER, EVER, use spray-in insulation if you think you will ever be renovating your home!
We spent the rest of the day (suited up in Tyvek and other protective gear) fishing chunks of drywall out of the powder, and using a snow shovel to fill garbage bags with the insulation. By the end of the day, what seemed to be a never-ending task was finally finished. And this time, the 40-yard bin was filled to the top.
Up next... Roofing
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