And so is the demolition of a wall; there are so many layers to deal with and it takes quite some time! Luckily time was on our side Easter weekend as Charles had 4 days off so we set to tearing down some walls to make way for our stairs!
As stated in this post we are removing the jut in the wall in the living room, along with the separating wall of the mudroom and living room to make room for the stairs to the attic.
This was the corner we were dealing with.
We started off by calling in our electrician buddy, Skylar, to remove a baseboard heater for us and make sure the power to that corner of the house was turned off. We quite possibly could have done all this ourselves (or just turned off the power to the whole house during demolition) but we needed him to look at a few other things for us anyway. With electricity, or lack of thereof, covered we set about to covering everything else with drop cloths.
Then we (well, Charles) set to tearing down some walls! (We only first covered the tv; once Charles got to actually tearing down walls then he laid down a drop cloth on the floor.) Charles used a Super Wonder Bar from Canadian Tire along with the occasional pound of a hammer to get in there and rip down the mouldings and walls; It’s basically a suped up crowbar.
See? Layers! After the initial panelling came down we had some more wood to deal with before getting to the studs on that one side. Oh and don’t mind Charles pink tool belt! He had to borrow mine because his tools and belt were left at work, bahaha!
And then there was a layer of insulation. We stacked all the insulation outside and covered it with a tarp. We also stacked all the panelling and wood in a big pile outside to be dealt with later. We were really hoping to keep the nice rustic 2x4s in the picture below for some future projects but sadly most of it splintered and came off in pieces from being so old.
Anna actually napped through a large portion of this which really surprised Charles and I being how loud it all was. Once she woke up she really enjoyed watching everything from a safe distance. Oh and here you can see that other little wall & window which also needed to come down.
Luckily one of our neighbours from across the street saw all the construction that was going on and came over to offer some help if we ever needed it. Charles took him up on his offer when it came to removing this large window which was extremely helpful because it was quite heavy and I doubt him and I could have done it.
For now the window pane is sitting out in our carport, anyone have any ideas of projects we could do with it??
Upon removing some moulding we discovered another layer in the form of some cedar shakes that must have initially been part of the exterior of the house! Luckily, until we renovate our mudroom, we don’t have to touch the wall that those are attached too and will probably just cover them back up with new moulding for the time being.
Finally some bare studs! Charles removed the vanity and panelling in the bedroom to get us to this point.
Last part that Charles tackled was getting started on cutting the hole in the ceiling. While I will say almost anyone can start demolition on a wall in a home (as long as you take proper precautions and make sure nothing is load bearing!) I would strongly advise hiring a professional carpenter if you plan on cutting a hole in your ceiling. While the portion that he removed thus far was just several layers of paneling and such and no actual cuts were requierd, any portion past this he will need to make sure he reinforces elsewhere in the roof and will also involve cutting through lath & plaster and creating a whole bunch of mess.
Also I will note that initially we intended to add a support beam to the wall that was separating the mudroom from the living room however we realized that there is already one in place (That thick green beam in the picture above). This luckily saves us a fair bit of time and extra cost! Hurray! Charles will just be replacing the 2x4 beneath it to make sure everything stays in good shape.
Getting down to this point did take us about 2 days of work. It probably could have been done faster but when you have a child who wants to play with her papa it slows things down haha. There is still a fair bit more that needs to be done before we can start on the stairs such as having Skylar come in and remove some more wires before fully tearing down the studs, creating a new flush wall in the bedroom, and a bit more work on the hole in the ceiling but it’s progress!
Did anyone else tackle any crazy renovations over the weekend?
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