No More Eyesore!

This week, we tackled the garage demolition.   Like last year when we gutted the inside of our house, Dave gathered a group of friends to help.

We lucked out with a nice, sunny day.  A little bit of muscle, two dumpsters and several beers later, the garage was gone!

  

For now, we’re left with the concrete pads that were beneath the garage. It certainly opens up the space and allows us to get a good feel for how we want to layout our yard.  Thanks to Jim, Rob, Dave, Chris, Guy, Becca and Ron for all your help!

Here’s the transformation:

 

Next up: breaking up the concrete and installing the fence posts.

Bye Bye Bathroom

Today we said goodbye to the upstairs bathroom. It was quite the challenge because all the old wall tiles were set in thick mortar with wire mesh. After a couple of swings with the sledge hammer, Dave decided that renting a demolition hammer was the only way to get the job done. Sadly, our bathroom is just as small without the tiles as it was before!



Good thing we have our shiny new basement bathroom, equipped with the Champion!

The Last of the Demolition

The demolition work is finally winding down, with the last few areas finished this week.

After making our final decision about the second floor, we gutted the smallest of the three bedrooms. We removed the trim from the other two and opened up the closet wall between them. Now we can make the closet in the master bedroom a bit larger. It still won't be the walk-in closet that we're used to in the condo, but it's something...

To finish up the main floor, we pulled up the old hardwood and removed the front hall closet.

Our Good Luck Charms

While removing some old wiring in the basement, Dave came across two horseshoes. They were stuck up in the ceiling, above the beam. We don't generally consider ourselves to be superstitious people, but something told us that we should probably leave them there! Here's what we've learned about horseshoes in houses:

The horseshoe is considered very lucky and used to be hung in many homes to protect and attract good fortune for the family residing inside. As with many superstitions, there are contradictions to be found with the beliefs associated with the horseshoe. For instance, many believe that to hang it with the ends pointing upwards is good luck as it acts as a storage container of sorts for any good luck that happens to be floating by, whereas to hang it with the ends pointing down, is bad luck as all the good luck will fall out. Others believe that no matter which way you hang the horseshoe, good luck will come. According to this superstition, the ends-pointing-down display simply means that the good luck is able to flow out and surround the home.

8 Firefighters, 1 Day

Today was a big day. A bunch of Dave's colleagues pitched in to help with the majority of the demolition. In just one day, they managed to completely gut the main floor and basement. Thanks to Stu, Phil, Rob, Colin, Ron, Mark and Shawn!

Here are some shots from today:

Preparing for Major Demolition

Major demolition work is starting on Monday. We're going to start pulling down the walls and ceilings on the main floor and in the hallway/stairwell on the second floor. We put down some paper to try and protect the stairs and the upstairs floors.

We also got the bin this week. We bought a tarp to try and keep people out of it (we don't want to pay to dispose of other people's trash!) but the heavy rain has been a bit of a pain. When the sun came out for a while, we did our best to get rid of some of the water.

Demolition Begins!

We began the demolition this weekend. We ripped out a few key areas of walls and ceilings so that our designer/architect could get a good look. We also started removing the kitchen cabinets.

Everything seems to be as expected, with the exception of the exterior walls. We expected to find wood framing behind the plaster, but discovered instead that the walls are strapped with only a one-inch cavity between the brick and the plaster. This won't affect our plans on the main floor, but adds an interesting factor to our decision about what to do on the second floor.

If we choose to gut the second floor, we will need to add framing to the walls to allow for insulation and additional electrical outlets. Adding framing to the walls on the second floor means we would lose some key space in each of the (already small!) bedrooms.

If we choose to leave the second floor as is, one of our new neighbours had a good suggestion. There are insulation products that can be blown into the one-inch cavity between the existing plaster and brick. This could be our solution - allowing us to increase our energy efficiency without having to wreck the nice hardwood floors!

Here are some pictures of the demolition: