'Labor' Day Party

In honor of the Labor Day weekend, we had a little labor day of our own. Thanks so much to everyone who gave up one of their long-weekend days and came over to help us out on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year. This was our most productive effort on the house in a year, and we couldn't have done it without all your help. Three cheers for the work crew! We have the best friends!

Before we get to the photos though, here's a little something new this post. These are before and after plans. The first one shows the house as it was before we started the weekend, and the second is how it looked at the end.

The orange areas are the work areas that show the places where we did the demolition. We took out all of the walls, doors, cabinetry, trim and (accidentally) part of the ceiling too.

The big light green square shows the area where we patched the ceiling and the dark green rectangle is the one new wall that we built. With some strategic tarp placement, this allowed us to close the second bedroom off from the rest of the house. We're hoping to finish the bedrooms walls in the next week or so....

And now, on to the good stuff:

With the ceiling reinforced, we were ready to remove interior walls! Good riddance to attic work!!

Here's the reminder that we are still actually living in the house - we're protecting the 'kitchen'.

A little design consultation....



...and then it was time to remove some walls!

Is this my new playpen?

Um, I guess not...

Lance and Bernard tackle the kitchen

Everyone likes the 'bash gudder'

Go, Lance, Go

Woo-hoo! The nasty cabinet is gone!


The walls are coming down!

Jason likes tearing walls apart


Ben does some 'selective' demolition

This used to be the wall between the living room and the smallest bedroom

Taking down plaster walls makes a BIG mess

Here's the first shot seeing all the way from the living room through to the back bedroom on the other side of the house. That cream colored thing at the back of the photo is not a wall. It's the tarp we put up to protect our bedroom.

There was a lot of dust in the air.

Lunch Break! Steph and Francesca made us these awesome sandwiches!

Everybody digs in

Um, why is there a big hole in the ceiling? Oops!

Here was the last support standing in the middle of the house.

WOW!

Removing the final wall bases

Leif pulls down some more ceiling

Are we the new 'American Gothic' or what?

Hey! Who threw that?

Ben!!!!!

Clean up time

Yay Crew!

Great work all!


Time to start building now!!
This is the new bedroom wall. We built it on the ground and then tilted it up into place.

Um, what are they doing?

Here's the wall going up...it's not quite plumb yet.

We love our nail gun. It is the most time-saving tool we have.

Am I doing this right?

Here's our new wall, waiting for gyp. board, and new bedroom ceiling.

We've decided that Jason is part monkey.

Here's the end of a successful weekend. This shot is great because you can see the outline of where the walls used to be on the ground with the new one in place.


Up next: more wall building...