Week 9 - continued
Sunday December 3rdWe moved to the main floor. There is less clean-up and more destroying to do there!
Andreas' friend Brad came over and good thing he did! Andreas and I were puttering about not really sure where to start that day...but Brad very calmly suggested a few things and away we went with some order to our day.
Brad is somewhat of a quiet guy but it became apparent to me that he'll see a job through so we nicknamed him Tenacious B.
A and B worked first on carrying out large pieces of drywall (to be stored on the front porch until they get to the recycle at the dump) and I was, YET AGAIN, sorting and slotting lath into boxes. It's making me barmy.
It was a somewhat random decision to start in the kitchen, but I am glad we did because the smallest demo had the largest effect. First a couple of bathroom walls came down - if I haven't explained it before, the bathroom was awkwardly built in the kitchen area and sort of stuck out, closing off the rest of kitchen a fair bit. With just one of the walls gone it was an immediate improvement! Brad knocked down the other wall to the point where there was a toilet, a sink and one strip of drywall left standing. The one strip was left to hold the electricity.
After the two walls came down, they started on the south wall of the kitchen, this is the one that has the bead board running the length of it. The upper half had, at one point been covered in some sort of burlap so all the plaster came off in big sheets! They were able to carry it out to the dumpster like that - sure cuts down on the dust!
Meanwhile, I started on the middle room/dining room and discovered it was a double-drywall situation. Under the first layer of drywall was some funky pink and orange flowered wall paper, but only small sections. It looked like someone had tried to peel of the paper, only to give up and drywall the whole room over top!
I got to a point where my size was working against me so I went into the kitchen to see what I could do in there. The men had removed some cabinets from the north wall, complete with layer of mold on the top.
I looked at pulling off the bead board but it was nailed down well...however Brad proceeded to make short work of it. We found some old wallpaper behind that as well, quite discoloured but I got a picture of it anyway. The rest of the time I just knocked off plaster and started pulling of lath.
Brad moved into the middle room/dining room and next thing I know the whole south wall is gone, including the studs! Tell me it doesn't look MUCH better!
This was a shorter day for us, we packed in about 5pm and sent Brad back to his family (Faith and the kids) with many thanks!
Monday - Andreas on a garbage run, I was out at a chef's association meeting...
The story of how we bought the crack house
Common references in my scrapbook:
Andreas: god love him for putting up with me and my big ideas
Me: the other half of the loony toones who decided to buy the house.
dodgy: means sketchy, bad, worse, 'imagine that' and 'can you believe it?'
ch: crackhouse
front room: main floor a.k.a living room
middle room: main floor a.k.a dining room
stolen goods room: this is at the front of the house in the basement - the police told us that is where the previous tenants stored their stuff