Upstairs Demolition

So last weekend, we ordered a dumpster, bought some respirators and gloves, donned our grubby clothes and went to town on the upstairs of the house. It was, in a word, AWESOME.
We filled a whole five-cubic-yard dumpster (plus had a smidge of room left over for our old broken grill and a busted lawn chair. We are totally less like hicks all the time!)

After learning from previous projects that what you rip out of your house and throw out a window has a way of spreading, and not everything will end up in the dumpster, I put out a tarp. And felt really smart when it rained and made the bits of old wallpaper what would have been horrible to clean up, were it not for the tarp.

Anyway, you didn't come to see pictures of us or our dumpster. You came for the before and after pix (or before and halfway...whatever. After is still a ways down the pike.) With no further ado, the guest room!
Guest room again, facing south...
Hallway/landing. Standing in guest room doorway, facing Todd's office. CHECK OUT THAT RAD CHIMNEY!!! So excited about that.

Hallway/landing facing the guest room.
I also have a video, for your viewing pleasure.



We didn't find a whole lot surprising in the attic. Pretty standard stuff: mouse droppings, old rat bait boxes, cruddy, patchy old insulation (which we're paying someone else to deal with -- luckily NOT asbestos insulation, YAY house!) and packing peanuts, which someone evidently decided would be a workable substitute for actual insulation.

Next steps include:

• getting someone to clean out the insulation
• making a plan for the bathroom (move the wall or don't move the wall in the bathroom?)
• getting the electrical inspected while all the walls are down
• properly insulating the upstairs
• finishing (drywalling) the attic space, hallway and rooms
• adding sconces and Solatubes for more light in the landing area
• replacing the windows
• executing whatever plan we formulate for the bathroom (it will be an all-white bathroom, for which I'm kind of excited)
• refinishing the gorgeous red pine floors
• possibly adding a large dormer on the back in the guest room

So, just a few things to do. But it's going to be great when it's done. Especially with that chimney.

ALSO! I never posted a picture of this when we picked them, but the apples from our "anniversary tree" orchard are SO GOOD. They are the best apples I've ever had, and I don't even really like Red Delicious that much. Having fruit trees is going to be so much fun.

Goodbye

This requires a little background info. A few months ago, when our garage was getting downright dangerous to navigate in the dark, we decided to clean it out. We heaped all the trash into what we were then thinking of as a side driveway that was basically useless because you couldn't park a car there. This was March-ish. When it was cold, and we weren't thinking about being outside at all.

Fast-forward to July, and we have begun referring to the still trash-covered region as our "patio," because we have realized it is quite convenient to have our grill there, rather than next to the pool, which is not near the kitchen. I separated the trash into categories: recycling, which was the bulk of it; trash, like styrofoam and old carpet and crap; and things we might use again, like wood and stuff. We started getting rid of things as we had space in our trash and recycling, and threw a tarp over the pile so we wouldn't have to look at it. This is what that looked like, minus the recycling, which we hauled out to the recycle place a few weeks ago.


Not really so bad, but it all still had to go, and it was too much/dirty to put in the back of my car. So we procured Todd's parents' truck for the excursion to the dump, and proceeded to fill it to the brim with a boatload of old carpet and whatnot.


For the small fee of $16.50, I had the privilege yesterday morning of unloading it at the dump. That was, umm, smelly. And industrial. I wore gloves and felt very tough. This is our pile.


They mist in the building to keep the dust down, which is why there are water droplets on my lens.

Anyway, so I keep talking about all this old carpet. You may remember that there was green carpet in our stairwell and upstairs landing, but I thought if I was going to bother making a trip to the dump, we might as well rip the remainder of it out and dispose of it. So here's what our upstairs looks like, sans green carpet and coordinating green pad. It still has the tan-colored pad that's irritatingly glued to the floor, but that is much more flexible and stuffable into a bag than carpet is, so we'll get to that when we have time.

We've also been puttering away on the little hallway area downstairs, in between the living room and bathroom/bedrooms. Joining the long list of Things We Just Don't Really Notice Anymore In Order To Maintain Sanity was the paint in this hallway. The walls were white at some point, I think, but they'd gotten all dingy and gray and just looked plain crappy. Here's an example. You can see where we painted, to the right, and what hasn't been painted yet. Ick.

On Saturday night (wild night, I know) we worked on painting trim and rolling the walls and ceiling. Funny thing about painting, there is almost no correlation between how long it takes to paint a room and that room's size. Or maybe there's in inverse correlation. Anyway, it's taking a while, so we just keep chipping away at it. The whole thing looks a lot lighter and cleaner now. I am going to be stenciling in there, so I'll post an "after" when it's done.