Beautiful weather weekend

A few things I learned from our first demolition weekend:
-cast iron tubs are heavy
-wearing a respirator makes my voice sound like Chewbacca
-they used license plates and tin container lids to patch holes in the walls behind the frig in the 1950's
-how to remove lathe & plaster
-my husband is even more hulking than I thought
-the sleep of the laborer is sweet

In a nutshell, this weekend was great.  We went out to the house Friday afternoon and then back again for most of Saturday to start on demo.  We saw incredible sunny and 60's weather, in light of the fact a couple days ago it was about 17 degrees when Gabe left in the morning and I couldn't start my diesel car because of it!

Friday, we got the entire kitchen cleared out: all the cabinets, countertops stove, sink, water heater, refrigerator, and *bonus*: a super old dishwasher that we hadn't noticed at all yet!  The heaviest item from that list was the water heater, as it was full of water!!  We managed to get it out on the porch and have it start draining.  Gabe was concerned while we were removing it that it would just break right though the floor, since it was so soft!  We saw that the west wall of the kitchen was probably the original exterior wood siding and not the pale yellow stucco siding that we see on it now.  Have I mentioned the original house was built in the 1890's???  Yes, lots of surprises.  We found lots of coins and interesting objects too, even a Coke bottle from 1995 :)

Our goal for Friday was to just demo the kitchen, but while I was sweeping the kitchen and shoveling some parts where the subfloor was as wet as mulch,  Gabe was making some real progress on removing fixtures from the downstairs (and only) bathroom.  He got the sink and toilet out, and called for my help once he had uninstalled the cast iron tub.  This particular tub was probably 300-400 lb. and we were sliding it across the floor on it's side.  We got it out to the porch together, and up on to this board precariously perched up there.  Might I add the slab of wood Gabe selected to span the distance from porch to dumpster (it's about a 6' drop) just made it with about 2-3" inches of clearance on both sides. We did not expect the dumpster to be placed as far away as it was.  Since all the kitchen appliances were also out on the porch I was having trouble getting enough space to leverage myself to push it over the edge since Gabe was on the other side (standing in the dumpster with all the nails and broken glass to step on) to guide the tub into the dumpster.  While we quizzed for a few moments as to what were doing a couple stopped by and a man got out and asked us if we needed some help.  I let him take my spot to push it over the edge and voila! it was done.  That was kind of them!  By this time the sun is really setting and our site is getting a bit dark.  I worked on removing nails on our reclaimed 2 X 4's while Gabe was getting super dirty taking drywall and sawdust insulation out of the bathroom ceiling and walls.  He got the whole ceiling down and about half of the walls.  That was that for Friday adventures.

Saturday, we got to the site around 10 am after a delicious pancakes and bacon breakfast at Mom & Dad's.  Today we were equipped with my parents R.V. so we could use the microwave and frig for lunch and be able to wash our hands and use the facilities too.  Our first task was to check to see if the power company actually came on Friday.  It hadn't.  We got to work removing the rest of the drywall and messy sawdust insulation in the bathroom.  It wasn't straight sawdust, it was encapsulated in tar paper, but if it got torn, which it did, the sawdust went everywhere.  Gabe thought the bathroom addition was added in the 80's because of the permitting sticker on the water pipes.  There were a bunch of holes in the floor that kept forming, especially around the water pipes at the base and another hole that was widening where the tub met the wall on the south side.  With the tub gone, the floor sagged and looked very compromised; I was hesitant to even put weight on it.

After I got it all swept out, we moved into the main area of the original space, a common room of sorts.  Plastic went down since we were about to hack into the wall separating the kitchen from the living room/common room.  With our respirators in tact, we got the lathe and plaster down.  Gabe diligently took 50 gal. trash can loads out to the dumpster at interval to keep the work space somewhat clean.  I enjoyed seeing layers of paint, which I plan to hold on to, since they are nice colors of blue-green, mustard yellow, olive green and farmhouse red.  I want to match them and re-incorporate the colors when we are ready to paint and stage the house to rent/sell.

Mom & Dad stopped by during lunch at 3:45 :) and put their hands to work clearing out some brush on the exterior of the house as well as some of the trash and debris on the back porch.  We sure enjoyed showing our progress!  I will post pictures and a video next.

It stayed sunny and warm both days and we count that a complete blessing straight from our good God.  Also, another fun fact we haven't mentioned: the first day we looked at the site we noticed the house number---is the same as my parents house!!!  How fun! and probably added a bit of surety that this was indeed the house for us.