Four Hour Fix-Ups: Living Room Demolition

Today I may or may not have rushed my kids to eat breakfast, get dressed, and run out the door in order to get the toddler to preschool in time, only to discover upon arrival that no one was there. A friend may or may not have told me at that point when I may have texted her with my confusion that preschool actually starts again tomorrow. I may or may not have gone coat shopping after the preschool fail, only to discover at the cash register that I had not brought any money.

....but, I DID completely demolish a living room using a sledge hammer, an axe, a crowbar, and brute force. Today has been one of my most interesting days ever. I started taping up the living room and vents around 1:30 and threw in the towel for the day at 10:30 pm. Yes, much longer than the 4 hour premise. Since I'm leaving town for a week on Friday I am working hard to get as much of this project done as possible.

My dad showed up at 3:40 with a checklist in hand of how much time each part of this project will take, along with an estimated budget (he also showed me how much money I am saving by doing this work instead of hiring it out). He helped me assemble the tools I would need and then he broke the ceiling open. He mostly held true to his word and sat in the chair and watched me work. He definitely did a great deal of work, but he let me and Susan do most of it.

How many times did I go up and down the ladder today? My quads got a great workout! Crossfit? How about Demofit? It was fun swinging crazy heavy, dangerous tools above my head, getting drywall stuck in my eyeballs (didn't start out with proper eye gear but Erich brought home some great safety goggles upon my request), picking up and carrying huge sheets of broken disgusting drywall to the truck, prying reluctant crown molding off the perimeter of the walls, and pulling nails out of the ceiling beams. At one point a nasty old cigarette (probably from 1985 when the house was built) fell out of the ceiling.

I am so relieved that we didn't find any problems underneath the ceiling. My dad had prepared me that you never know what you will find and sometimes you find things you need to fix. The only thing we found is one spot we will spray with bleach and a wire that needs to be secured with 'u-nails.'

Susan was a huge help. She was here, helping to pull down ceilings, pulling nails from the beams, and she did all of the vacuuming afterwards. We looked at each other in wonderment and laughed about what we were doing. We never imagined we would tear a room apart! She and I loaded up the truck and Erich took it all to the dumpster tonight for us so we wouldn't have to do that tomorrow. He also provided dinner for us and put the toddler to bed.

I am so grateful for my dad's direction on this and for everything I learned this evening. Tomorrow we will be doing the electrical work. We are putting in 8 cans of recessed lighting and we will run speaker wire so that we can add speakers to the room. We will change the light switch from two to three switches so we will have separate switches for the fan light, fan, and the recessed lights will be on a dimmer.

One of the very best things about today was that my kids - all three of them - really got into this and had so much fun! The two older ones insisted upon helping pry the nails out of the beams, so they were up on ladders using crowbars and hammers, having so much fun! It makes me so happy that they can share in the delight of a major DIY project like this...and that this knowledge will pass on to the next generation of my family.

Here are some pictures from today...

I am SO happy to not look at this nasty stain on that nasty ceiling for one more minute....well, except in pictures.