Demolition Woman

I decided the best way to shake some serious new year's inertia was with a serious new year's project, so forgive me for being kinda quiet over here, guys; there's been much plotting and dreaming and steampunky research going on. Yesterday we finally "broke ground," so to speak - by breaking my back room. [evil grin]

Here's a quick phone photo dump to show you what I did:

First, I packed our entire back room into the dining room:

I'm actually impressed it fit so well.

I managed to move everything on my own except the couches, treadmill, & loaded book case, which John handled:

  Bringing us from this:

To this: 

I assembled that Wal-Mart entertainment center the first year of our marriage, about 15 years ago, and I've stubbornly refused to replace it ever since. It only took a good push to collapse the whole thing into scrap. Heh. End of an era.

At this point I paused to play soccer with the cats, who REALLY enjoyed the wide open play room.

Now we're both tuckered out.

 Onward!

See the buckling paneling in the upper right? One of the many reasons this room is due an overhaul.

This back door behind the treadmill is getting removed and walled over as I type this:

A Jen's-eye-view of cutting & rolling up the old carpet:

We've been systematically removing all carpet in the house, so after this only John's room will be left. Between the cats and the fact that we like wearing shoes inside, carpet is just impossible for us to keep clean - so I couldn't rip the stuff up fast enough. Bleh.

 What lies beneath: shiny, slightly-pink 80's tile. Don't worry; it'll be covered again soon enough.

Next we removed all the wall screws, window coverings, and John hammered up all the old tack strips. Then he went after the walls:

The studs look to be in good shape, so after a collective sigh of relief, we called it a night. (This one room is stick-built, not block, so we were afraid of termite damage.)

Today we're finishing demo, John is walling over the back door, and then hauling all the scrap to the dump. I'll be replacing all the outlets and possibly pre-painting some trim. After that, we begin installing the new walls. 

Wish us luck!