Front Bedroom Demo

Is anyone else tired of looking at demo? Just me? Well if you aren't then you are in for a treat, because that's all we (mostly P's dad and bro) have been doing since the exterior wall rebuild extravaganza 2010. I have already shared pictures of the bathroom mess and thanks to our aforementioned family heroes that mess is all cleaned up. Thanks again guys! The bathroom isn't the only thing getting a little pry bar love. We had/have to do all the other rooms too. So, two weeks later and after a lot of help, here we are, almost done with demo...and because this took so long and I don't want to shove it all into one post I will divide it into three.

Trim removed, all prepped and ready for demo.

I never seem to get enough before pictures before starting to hack away at something. Other side of the room with the wallboard removed (it was covering a previous door opening). Now time for the plaster.

Well there you go. Plaser removal doesn't really lend itself to stopping to take pictures along the way. We pretty much strap on one of these, close the door, open the windows and go to town. Thankfully we got an amazing tip from Bob (the demo guy) when he was in giving us a quote for how much he would charge to finish the work (we obviously opted to do it ourselves). So anyway, we had previously been hacking into each wall, hooking our pry bars through the lath and then just pulling chunks down...plaster and lath together. This makes for a super painful clean up that we always dreaded...see bathroom demo. Bob told us to take a shovel (we actually used the long scraper from the linoleum removal), beat the wall up a little (this loosens the plaster that drips down behind the lath holding the two together), then just scrape the plaster away from the lath with the shovel/scraper. Seriously guys, amazing. So much easier. Then you just shovel up the plaster and bag it and no more trying to shovel tangled sticks and plaster chunks. Thank. You. Bob.

Goodbye plaster. Is it just us or does anyone else think the lath looks really cool? I have seen a lot of houses where they did just that...left it in a hallway...or a study. Neat idea. P's bro actually told us about some house in Huntsville where the people removed all the lath, cleaned it, then re-hung it all, then I think grouted it and stained it. Intense.

In case you were wondering what a room full of lath looks like put into contractor bags. Challenge of the year: not putting too much plaster into each bag so that it ends up weighing a ton and can't be carried anywhere.

Loving that lath.

Close up of the chimney hiding out in hopes that I won't tear it down too (I am totally tearing it down, more on that later).

Favorite find from this room came from that very stove hole into the chimney. I had never heard of these (having never owned or operated an old stove myself), but I'm guessing they were pretty common. This is not the one we found, I forgot to take a picture of ours, typical. Anyway, they are these funny little metal hole covers that I am guessing came in a variety of scenes (ours is actually more of a prairie). The metal wires slide into the hole and hold the little decoration in place. Adorable. The cover seen below was found on Ebay and can be yours today.

This is what the room looks like now...just a little more lath removal and allll done.