I know we haven’t provided any updates for a few days. You’re probably all awaiting those glorious after pictures that you see in Better Homes and Gardens, aren’t you? Sadly, I can’t provide anything close to that yet as we’re still knocking down and cleaning up ceilings and walls. Just when we think we’re done, someone requests that another area be exposed and off we go. Pretty soon we’re either going to satisfy them or run out of things to knock down.
After cleaning out the unfinished portion of the attic (unseen on the above photo…just as well) and carrying it as far as the top of the stairs of the finished part of the attic, we created a mess. It was then armful by armful hauled down to the dumpster in the yard outside causing us to wonder what possessed us to purchase a home with three levels.
We had so much fun doing that Saturday morning that we decided to knock down a ceiling in the afternoon. (Seriously, that’s not sarcasm. We’re really having fun.) Joel’s been dying to have a reason to rent a Sawzall for a long time now. Here is a video of him using it to tackle the ceiling bit by bit. His intention was to create a neater line so that repairing the ceiling was less intense. So when he was done, the ceiling had fairly clean cut edges and looked like this.
Then on Monday the plumber came through and said, “Oh shoot. Meant to tell you that the entire ceiling needs to come down.” So back at it he went and when done the ceiling looked like this.
And the floor looked like this.
BTW…that powdery gray stuff is insulation. Have I mentioned yet that this room will someday be a closet and bathroom for the master bedroom which is behind that far red wall? There will be a doorway leading to that adjacent bedroom, right about where that piece of plywood is leaning. Then the two doors to the hallway that you see on the right (yes, this room has two doors) will be closed up. You gotta have a little bit of trust in the vision with this one, don’t you?
Anyway, back to cleaning. Then we shoveled and swept that knee-deep debris into buckets like this.
We carried about 100+ of those down two flights to the dumpster, folded up the tarp, swept and Shop-Vac’d the remaining bits, and voila! Three hours later the room looked like this. Now do you understand why sweeping and cleaning gives me a false sense of control? There really are results to be seen, even if only fleeting.
Speaking of dumpsters, our 20-cubic-yard bin was picked up last week, full to the brim. We now have a second one to fill. It’s half the size demonstrating our complete confidence that the end is near.
I will leave you with a fun video of son, Calvin, assisting us in knocking down the wall between two closets which will ultimately become our laundry room. Enjoy! And thanks for reading to the end of yet another blog about messes. xo
