Friday, May 4, 2012

Demolition Smack Down

There are about a million things going on right now...I'm taking a little break from tea-staining and spray painting everything in sight to do a little blogging. I'm looking forward to posting the bathroom reveal soon (it's looking sooo good!) but for now I thought I'd give you a little glimpse of what taking down the walls looks like. The bathroom wasn't the only place we rearranged the blueprints, a couple of bearing walls also made their exit from our kitchen space...

Moral of the story? There was a lot of demolition.

Which.
Was.
Awesome.



Seriously. If you've never had the pleasure of taking a hammer or sledgehammer and just going to town with full permission to smash stuff, you haven't lived.

Our house was built in the 40's, which meant that horsehair plaster and lath (and a couple of really cool newspaper clippings about WWII!) was waiting for us underneath the wallpaper and paint.  That required taking the back of the hammer and digging in. It was really so much fun.

Here are a couple of pictures of our process of destruction.


That's a little glimpse of the layers. Isn't that kind of cool? It's like looking back through the years...you know? Different families, different people made these choices to decorate in this way.  I feel pretty good about the fact that the original homeowners featured the same green in their kitchen that we'd like to feature.


This is the view from the master bedroom looking into our bathroom.  All those little strips of wood are called lath, it's what they used to support the wet plaster.  We tore through most of it...but were able to save enough whole strips that they just might be revived into something else. Look for them to pop up again. ;)

That big hole has now been framed in, and only the space for our doorway remains. Here's what it looked like before, plus wallpaper:


Bam. That wall has been smacked down.

I can't really think of what else to say of these next pictures. Except: Boom! House, you've been rocked.

(Some of them were able to be paired with their respective "Before" pictures. I labeled their matches as "During" because, let's face it...this should not be the "After.")



From the living room toward the kitchen.



Inside the kitchen.




A little more inside the kitchen.


 Aaaaand that's pretty much the state of the house right now. Construction zone. Which is great. :)

Now, don't you wish you'd been there to smash stuff with us?


Happy Friday!

10 comments:

  1. This is fantastic! I can't wait to see all of the details that you are going to add. When is the projected finish date?

    More please!!

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    1. Well I guess that depends on your definition of "finish"...maybe I should write a post about everything we're going to do...

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  2. P.S. Are you keeping the chandelier??? I vote YES!

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  3. I REALLY hope our next house is a fixer upper... is that weird?!? Looks like you guys have made a ton of progress! I've had to strip layers of wallpaper off a wall... I'm thinking that just tearing the wall down is much more fun :)

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    1. I don't think it's weird. ;) It's a lot of fun...and a lot of work.

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  4. It looks like you are having a blast. So fun to be able to really be a part of the design... and destruction. Can't wait to see it in person!

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    1. Yeah, that's one of the coolest things about doing the remodel...it's not a totally blank canvas like you would get with building, we have parameters to work within, but we have the freedom to get really involved with the design as long as it works within those boundaries.

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  5. Ok NOW I can post on your actual blog.

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  6. of course i wish i had been there for smashing! best job ever! much better than pick up the nails we have dropped by being more manly than you. that is what i normally had handed to me. also dan just so you know that job should only be given to a child as punishment. not as his part of contribution on a project.

    also jessica... post again! they are great and you are so close to the weeding these are the days people most wanna hear your thoughts. right around when you have no time to share them =] lol

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