Demolition–Day 1

Today we met with our contractor and his assistant and although the R-E-A-L work doesn’t start until Monday, some issues were dealt with today…like the upstairs bathroom.

The upstairs portion of our house has not been lived in for several years.  The couple who we purchased the house from had blocked off all the heating vents to the upper level and kept all the doors shut during the winter months.  Their bedroom was set up in the living room…yes, you read that right…and they used the sitting room where we now have our fireplace as their living room.

Jody, our contractor, said that this bathroom was his main concern.  In his opinion, all the other work is ‘routine’. 

Do you see the ‘fake’ tile board behind the sink and toilet?  That was on every wall in the bathroom.  Because of the age of the house, his…and our…concern was what might be lurking behind it.  Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated and the entire room will now be reinsulated and outfitted with new sheet rock.  He also checked out all the plumbing and fixtures and reported that they are in pristine condition, probably because they hadn’t been used that much.  They estimate the pedestal sink to be between 75-100 years old, simply because of the configuration of the internal workings and positioning of the faucets.   The original porcelain finish looks like new and the only thing that will have to be changed are the faucets because the finish is pitted and they look kind of ugly.

Meanwhile, the trash mound has started.  We left the spare bedroom empty and that will be their construction room.  As Jody said, if they keep all the dust and trash confined to one room, that will cut down on the mess travelling throughout the house.  Oooh, I hope so.

While his assistant was tearing out the bathroom, I followed Jody from room to room as he measured and itemized what he would need in the way of raw materials.   Shortly thereafter they left to go shopping to pick up the supplies in order to begin the R-E-A-L stuff bright and early Monday morning.

Jody also left me with the paint swatch binder from which I get to select colors.  Decisions, decisions.  I can envision what I want in my head but once I start going through them, I just might change my mind.  The kitchen and pantry have me stumped simply because we only decided this morning to include them in the mix.  But I have all weekend to decide since the paint won’t be ordered until Monday.

We were only going to have him paint some of the rooms but now Mr. Painted Quilt decided that he should paint every room in the house…including ceilings.  Yay!  Yippee!  Woo hoo!  Hurray! 

If everything goes according to schedule, by this time next week everything should be finished and a few days after that,  I’ll be showing you before and after pictures of our entire house.  I’ll need some time to clean and set things in their proper places because…you’re all invited to the REVEAL.