Take out the staircase wall?? I think so!

We got a little more done today!  Before I tell you about it, I want to tell you what I found yesterday (forgot to tell you last night!)  While we were removing the walls from the closet & above the stairs, I was up on the little "shelf" above the stairway...kind of like a cubby in the closet.  I was pulling the wood paneling off and pulled a piece of trim from the top...stuck my wonderbar behind the paneling and pulled it toward me to start tearing it out and something rolled toward me.  It looked like a little light bulb or something.

 This is where I was...right under the light bulb on the right, sitting on that little shelf and working on the top of the wall (also on the right)

 Here's my view of the top of the wall...

right in there where you can see insulation is where I was prying the paneling....

and this is what I found!  A glass marble!  It's about the size of a ping pong ball.  What on earth was it doing up there.  As far as Kadecan tell they've never used the attic for storage - the only way to even get there is through the ceiling in the garage - and we were on the other end of the house.  Unfortunately it wasn't gold or cash, but it's still interesting. (at least it's interesting to me...much more interesting than the 2 cigarette butts that I found in the wall back there!)

Now, to focus on the things we worked on today...

 

Turney's checking out the septic - and where the pipe is that actually comes to it.  Got all of that figured out.  Kade knows where to use the jackhammer, etc.  So that is good.  Should be able to start working on that next week!  Yeah!

Here's our entryway from last night...the view from what was the living room.

 

Here's the stairwell, going down to the basement.  It was lined with rough cut cedar.

 

Here's what it looks like now!  We took that cedar down row by row...I might be using it in one of the bathrooms or something as an accent wall.  Took out the top half of the 2x4's and put up a temporary railing.  That REALLY opened up the entryway.  I still hate that you run in to something like 4ft. into the house...but a railing is much better than the solid wall that was there yesterday!!

 

We're still trying to figure out how to work the railing and closet right as you walk in, but we've got a little time before we actually have to have a plan!

Next we moved to the basement...tonight we worked on the "utility" side.

Here's the before...

Don't you just LOVE the glitter that was on the ceiling??

We had to tear down all of the drywall so that we can run new duct work for whatever HVAC system that we decide to go with.  Need to make a decision on that SOON!

There's Kade finishing up the last little bit of drywall that I couldn't reach.  This is how we left it tonight!  Ceiling-free!  Only took us about an hour!

So I guess we did get quite a bit done today.  Tomorrow it's more ceiling on the other half of the basement (about 3 times what we did tonight) and I'd love to get the carpet pulled up too!  Fingers crossed we can get both of those things done tomorrow!

Day 18

2 and a half weeks in and this is where we're at!

This is what the old living room looks like now!

and here's the kitchen.

Today was such a SLOW day!  Oh my gosh!!  It was like it was never going to end!!  It took us longer today to get all of the plaster/drywall out of the entryway than it took us all to get the other three rooms done yesterday!  That is ridiculous!  There was stupid mesh in EVERY stinkin' corner (inside and out) and around the edge of the ceiling.  Gerrrr!  I think there were 14 pieces of mesh all together - just in that tiny little area!!  AAAHHH!

So here's the before...this morning everything on this side of the wall was already taken down, and the tile was already gone.  Forgot to take a "true" before pic.

 

 

Here it is....finally all down and cleaned up....

Kade and I worked for 4 hours just on this darn spot!

We left the plaster up on the other side of the far wall there...that's the hallway by the bedrooms and we're not going to change anything there...so it's going to stay plaster for the time being!  That little "shelf" that you see on the right was inside of the closet - that particular area is above the stairs...and tomorrow that comes out too!

Tomorrow we meet with Turney's again in the afternoon to scope the drain and see where we can tie in to the plumbing for the extra bathroom.  We're going to have to jackhammer the floor up in the basement (YIKES!)  And he's also going to figure out where our septic tank actually is.....that would be something nice to know!

Oh, and before I go for the night, I have to tell a funny story from last night.  (not nearly as good as "Old Faithful" though!)  So we had this one 2x4 that still needed to be taken out of a wall that's no longer there.  Kade so generously told me that I could take the sledge hammer and knock that bad boy outta there.  I grab the sledge...ready...aim...Kade says "hit it from the top"...I look at it, and I say "No, I wanna hit it from the bottom".  So I swing that sledge back...give the 2x4 a good 'ol smack at the bottom and BOOM...that stupid 2x4 hit me SO FREAKIN' HARD on the left shoulder!!  WHAT THE CRAP!!  I laughed it off, but dang!  I told Kade it was like...You hit me, I'll take care of you!  DANG! Now my shoulder is bruised...maybe next time I'll listen to what Kade says! (emphasis on maybe)

This is How We Do It!

All I can say is WOW!!  Serious work got done today.  My brother Scott and his friends Kyle, Trevor and Tim came out after lunch and tore in to the walls that we still needed removed!  Here they are at the end of afternoon  :) (and we owe them a very special thanks...fishin' spot for life boys!!  We really appreciate you all!)

Kyle David, Tim Voss, my brother Scott Pape in the front and then Trevor Voss

The boys tearing right in!!  So they were the first shift of workers...

Here's Kade telling me "There's no going back now!"  (Yes dear, I know that, lol!)  This was right before they started tearing out the ceilings!!

 

Then the next shift of help arrived!  Our friends Mike & Johnny Harman came out.  They helped us finish up just about everything AND clear out the debris!  So now all we've got left in terms of removal is the bathroom walls, a small wall in our entryway and the basement ceiling and carpet!  YEAH!!  Hopefully tomorrow I won't be completely exhausted and we can finish those things!!  Anyone want to help??  It's amazing how much more gets done when there's 6 extra people working!!  So to sum up the day we got all of the interior walls in the kitchen, dining room and living room removed, as well as the ceilings in all 3 of those rooms!  That is a LOT of drywall/plaster and about a zillion trips to the dumpster!  Will I be able to get up tomorrow morning...only time will tell!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!  A Friday the 13th Birthday!!  What did we do today you ask....Well, we met with the custom cabinet builder this morning, it went really well!  Can't wait to see what he comes up with! (which reminds me...I need to email him pronto!)  Then Kade's mom brought us lunch...my favorite of course since it was my b-day, Jimmy Johns - YUMMMM!!!  I seriously could eat that EVERY day!  Then this afternoon I built my bigger fire - still not big enough for that darn fireplace though!  That baby is huge!  We really need to get the damper to control the air flow!

Those logs look pretty small in that 46" opening!  I need to find a FAB mantel somewhere too!

I also drew out the new floor plan for the front room to get a better visual of how it would really look. See my chalk lines?  I think it's going to work, but still nervous about making that change.  Why do I worry about EVERY stinkin' decision???  We started pulling hardwood flooring up from the biggest bedroom tonight.  Got maybe 1/4 done (maybe a little more)  It's quickly coming back to me that I don't really enjoy removing hardwood floors...who's idea was that again??  ;)

Tomorrow is going to be a BIG day!!  My brother Scott arrived home around 8 tonight and he and some of his friends are going to help us get the rest of the walls out (and hopefully ceilings too).  We should have a pretty good team tomorrow...hopefully a few of our friends will show up to help as well.  Then we'll be ready to move the garage to kitchen entry door and add our main floor laundry/pantry and extra bathroom - I'm calling the laundry/pantry the clutter room...I just hope it doesn't stay cluttered all the time!  So...guess I'd better get myself to bed.  Kade has been asleep for hours...he's so good.  I just stay up until I can't function and I need toothpicks to prop my eyelids open!

Fire!

In the fireplace  :)  Yeah!  Just a tiny one.  I'm going for bigger and better tomorrow - to see how it does.  I talked to a guy today about getting the damper, and he said to build a few fires and see how it goes.  Then if we've got any draft issues we can get the proper one.  I actually thought that was pretty nice of him - that way we'll actually get the right thing!

Soooo...that's about all we got done at the house today, lol.  Since the weather was so gross I stayed home and worked on cabinet stuff, researched dampers and some other items for the fireplace.  This is the fireplace screen that we picked out...love it!  Kade actually had to make a Lowe's run before he came home from work tonight and they had ONE left....guess it was meant to be  :)

Tomorrow morning we meet with a cabinet maker about doing custom kitchen cabinets.  Then as soon as we hear back from him I have GOT to make a decision on which ones we're going with.  Otherwise we're going to have a house waiting on cabinets and flooring (basically it would be waiting on ME!!)  I need to start polling my friends and have everyone vote on the items...it would be like Blog Cabin on DIY!  If I could just stop second guessing myself it would be SO much easier!

Chim, Chim, Cher-ee, Chim, Chim, Cher-ee

Guess what I found......

My earring!!  YEAH!!

While I did tell Kade that if I found the lost one I wouldn't need the new ones....I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to let him take them back, lol!  It honestly was driving me crazy that I couldn't find it though.  Today was extra bad...I looked all over at the new house...in the truck...then finally decided that I should maybe check under the seat.  Low and behold...there it was!  It must have fallen off of the tote when Kade chucked it into the back seat and then lodged itself between the cushions.  (our back seats in the truck fold up for more storage)  So glad I found it!!  I'm still thinking I should get some new piercing studs from Claire's Boutique though, lol!

So today we met with Turney's about Geothermal and some plumbing stuff.  Waiting to hear back about what appendages we're going to have to sell to get the Geothermal that Kade really wants, lol.  The appointment went really well though overall.

We also had the Chimney Sweeps come out this afternoon to clean and inspect the chimney.  HOLY MACKEREL that chimney was a mess!!  They said they'd NEVER gotten so much junk out of a chimney before!  GREAT! (not!)  So together, with my cleaning yesterday and theirs today, we got about five...that's right FIVE, 5 gallon buckets of junk out of the fireplace/chimney!  Pretty that thing hasn't been cleaned out since 1974!  The damper COMPLETELY fell apart when he reached up to clean it (which I knew was going to happen, lol)  So we're going to have to buy some kind of a damper for the top of the chimney now.  Otherwise, there are just 2 places that could use a little fireplace cement (which I can fix myself!)  Whew!  Oh, and I need to find some fireplace doors too.  That's gonna be a fun one...that bad boy is 46" wide (much wider than most fireplaces) so of course it's going to be a special order item!!  Maybe I'll get lucky, but I've been searching online for a bit tonight and haven't seen any "good" deals.  Perhaps I can get Kade to just go for it sitting open (if we get the good damper for the chimney)  I have to say....I LOVE that it's a real wood burning fireplace!  They are SOOOO relaxing!  The chimney guy did actually say that we could build a fire in there ANYTIME now, it's ready to go! (Kade, are you reading this???)

I think tomorrow we might be back at pulling up the hardwood floors in one of the two bedrooms left.  Can't wait to actually get that done (but I can guarantee that my arm could wait a lifetime, lol!)  Two more days until the rest of the walls come down....so exciting!!  I guess I really need to start making some decisions on flooring and cabinetry.  Ugh!  Somebody needs to do that for me I think!  :)

You Can't Stop Progress!!

Another day and a few more things checked off of the list.  Trying to get things ready for this weekend.  My brother will be home from Chicago for my b-day Friday and Saturday he's gathering his team and coming over to help get down the walls that we need taken out!  YEAH!!  The more help we have the better!

So today I went over and opened up the fireplace in the basement family room. (I've been DYING to do that!)  They had closed up the fireplace and put a wood burning stove in, then vented it through the fireplace.  Seems pointless to me!  I was going to take out all of the tile under the wood stove too, but boy was I shocked when I couldn't even budge the dang thing!!  I even sat on the floor and tried to move it with my feet!  (mind you I was trying some gentle force...I didn't want to break it with my mad Incredible Hulk power, lol!)

So here's the before.  Isn't this room just nice and 70's??

This is how they had the cover put on.  Screwed in with 9 screws and then some kind of gunk "sealing" the edge.

 This is the flue...after I finally got the cover off and un-wired the damper...I realized that the darn thing was rusted and the handle that you'd open and close the damper with wasn't even attached anymore.  Oh joy!

So here's how it looks without the stove pipe running through it and not being covered by the metal plate.  I think it looks MUCH better!  Going to have to wait until this weekend to get the stove out of the way though.  I don't really think Kade and I could move it on our own.  I swear...the thing must weigh a ton!!

Here's the hardwood floor that we've salvaged so far.  We've got more done upstairs...we'll probably move that down to the basement tomorrow.

I had to stop on my way back home and just admire our lake for a minute.  The weather was so nice again today too....ahhhhh!

 

Tonight Dad and Kade were back at it.  (I was working on designing the kitchen...which actually may be the death of me!!)  They finally got the rest of the soffit out!  That room just looks enormous now!

Here's my kitchen design station.  You know I'm going to give in and pay for the cabinets/design from Kitchenland  :)  Why am I even wasting my time?

 

From my "station" in the front room I kept hearing an awful noise...I got up...slid the pocket door open and peeked in at Dad & Kade....there they were ripping up the extra layer of subfloor in the kitchen.  Oh my gosh if you could have seen all the nails!  Look how big Dad's pry bar is - the think is like 4'.  That's the persuader of pry bars!!  They were both sweating like dogs when they were doing this! (and the temp is only 50 in the house...so you know they were working hard!!)

 

At the end of the evening...soffit gone, extra sub-floor up, more of the dividing wall gone!  Getting closer to wall removal time every day!!  That's going to be make a crazy difference!

 

So tomorrow we meet with someone about geothermal and then we meet with the chimney sweep to inspect and possibly clean the chimney (at the very least he will tell us what we need to do to make it usable).  We're probably going to have to get some kind of firebox to put in there.  I just want to build a fire NOW!!  But I suppose I should wait to hear what this guy says....cause I sure don't want to burn the place down!