Demo

While we wait for our windows (the subject of which requires its own post), we got started on removing some of the yuck from the 2nd floor unit. We started small; removed dozens and dozens of nails and screws from the walls. We're talking walls covered with nails every 5", from top to bottom on 11' ceilings. I don't think I will ever figure out what they were placed there originally but a girl can speculate; tchotchke alter perhaps?

Moving along, we then took down the shelving that was thoroughly attached to the windows. All the windows were covered by all the shelves. It was perplexing to say the least.

There was laminate piled upon laminate. In one particularly easy portion to remove, there were only two layers under which looks like original wood flooring. We'll do all we can to restore it and use it. There are several gaps that are wide enough to look through and seems there isn't any sort of sub-floor beneath it. The wood is nice and thick and I'll love to sand it down, patch it up and keep it. After talking about possibility of either removing it and laying a sub-floor with sound insulation underneath, or keeping it as it is, we decided it was best to live with it and determine down the line if the sound transfer between the two units is too unbearable. Cost is always a factor, and I'd like to error on the side of doing too little in some areas so that we can add lovely things like transom windows over the doors to bring even more light into certain spaces.


Then C took out the big guns and removed jenky closets, and lofted lofts of boards, and junk. There were so many subdivisions of such lovely large airy rooms. We took down boards covering double door that were boxing them in from the tops and sides. The kitchen had two pieces of plywood stapled into a doorway between it and the dining room. The original plans show there was a pocket door where we have our heat registers and a heat register where there is the large opening between the rooms. I thought perhaps the removal of the wall came later in the life of the home, but the floor plan is exactly the same on both levels. The heat registers seem to have been there since the dawn of time as well. The walls are all plaster and the upstairs doesn't seem to have been altered in anyway other than the removal of the portion housing the pocket door and it's opening. There are also identical small built in niches and cabinets on both floors that seem original to the home as well, in the area supposedly occupied by the original pocket doors. I am suspicious that in the actual building of the property, the door and heating run locations were switched.

Either way you look at it, the plywood needed to be removed and C got to resurrect some of his Karate from childhood as we took out, you guessed it, more shelves closing off more doorways.

Master bedroom doorway revealed after removal
of a heap of hodgepodge wood.

You can see the faint outline of plywood
that was painted over between
kitchen and dining room.

I leave you with this:

I leave you with this gem. Do your self a favor. Hit play. It'll put a smile on your face.