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Monday, May 7, 2012

Move That Bus!

Well, not quite. But, we did start demo on the back hall yesterday. It went quickly and nothing collapsed, so it was a winning kind of day. We were surprised by a few things that we found, but some of those surprises were of the good sort.

Surprise, there's insulation!

No surprise, an overwhelming amount of mold. 
Surprise, the studs on the far wall are sideways! Just 
give it a push and it will probably topple over.

We expected to find mold, but not this much. I was going to clean it up and leave this space enclosed until we got our professional consult (now scheduled for tomorrow morning). But after looking at it for about a half an hour, I decided that it needed to come down immediately. Fortunately, Nate agreed and we got to work.

It doesn't look different yet.

Here we go, a sure sign of progress.

Your eyes are not deceiving you - the upper studs and lower studs do not line up with each other. There is dry rot everywhere, and there doesn't appear to be a concrete sill. Nope, this baby was built directly on the ground. It is actually a good thing that everything is sooo bad, because now we don't have to decide what to replace and what to keep. We need to replace almost everything. We are hoping to keep the roof structure/ceiling, the basement stairs and possibly the  gutters (temporarily - the whole gutter system will be replaced eventually). Other than that, buh-bye!

In case you are interested, I was wrong about the west wall being built on top of the concrete steps. So jackhammering the steps out should be a bit easier than we expected. And on Friday I'll let you know how tomorrow's consultation goes along with a list of what we anticipate to hire vs DIY.

6 comments:

  1. How exciting! I love a good demolition project! Can't wait to see how it turns out!

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    1. Thanks! It won't be the most exciting "after" you've ever seen, but it's necessary.

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  2. Wow. Sometimes it's so bad it's good, right? Hopefully your consultation goes well & you get some clear direction on where to go from here. :) Good luck!

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    1. Yes! The contractor is highly recommended by a friend who did a lot of DIY renovations, so we are hopeful.

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  3. such a hard worker! I hope the consultation goes well! have a great rest of your day!
    ~Morgan
    :D

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    1. Thanks for taking the time to read this post!

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