Continuing Demolition

The most dramatic change in the last week is the removal of the sheet rock on the ceiling. There was only about an inch of insulation, which is why the house was so hard to keep warm in the winter and got so hot in the summer. 

This first picture is a view toward the kitchen.  All that remains is the sink on the left side of the picture.  Of course, the toilet was not in the kitchen! Since it is only a few years old, and works perfectly fine, it is being reused.  The long black tube on the right is a duct for the air conditioning. The rectangular, silver object up above the ceiling is the air handler for the air conditioning.

This is the current view from the second bedroom, through the former bathroom, and into the Master Bedroom.  You can see the last of the floor tile on the floor, and the tub on the right.  While we were there, there was an exiting few minutes when a capped off water pipe broke, and water started gushing out onto the floor.  I heard Christopher yell, "S**t, turn off the water," and ran down the basement stairs to the main water shut off where it comes into the house.  As our contractor said later, whenever you have pipes as old as ours, they can easily snap off.

I took on the job of demolishing the massive brick fireplace.  It involved breaking off individual bricks, then carrying them out and throwing them down into the ravine.  I have previously used bricks from a neighbor's renovation to stabilize the bottom of the ravine and reduce the erosion. They work very well.

This is the "before" picture.  One of the crew had already done some demolition, and had stacked up the bricks on the floor.  You can see the chimney behind the fireplace, which runs up through the roof, and some top bricks removed. 

That fireplace is solid bricks, no open air space.  I spent about three hours using a sledge hammer and a crowbar, carefully taking off a few bricks at a time, so it wouldn't fall over and damage the oak floor.  Then I carried 4-6 bricks outside in a bucket with chunks of mortar. Bricks are very heavy!

Three hours or so later, this is what was left.  I still have the raised hearth to demolish, which promises to take as much time since it is solid masonry.  I don't look forward to it, but it will save us some money. 

We are still considering what to put up instead, but know we want something much smaller. The previous fireplace was 6 feet tall and 6 feet wide, much too massive for room.  David likes the idea of some kind of limestone, but hasn't found anything he likes yet.