Demo Day!

It's been about 48 hours since the beginning of demolition.  It seems longer.

This is the first time I've felt like looking at pictures and editing them (poorly) to put up and document the process.  I was beat at the end of the day Friday, and compared to the guys actually demoing/framing, I didn't do anything.

This is the view from the living room looking towards the office/kitchen.  By the end of the day, the painted paneling was gone, the arches were patched and the first coat of mud was on the wall.  It looks better already. The temporary door fascinates the cats.  They know something is happening on the other side. We've had to put a rug up against it to keep them from trying to dig into the work area.

This is a before/during/after view over 12 hours.

This gives a little bit of the idea of the barrel vault that will be over the island.  It'll all make sense later.

Here is the faux bay window that will be a single picture window when we're done.

Lumber delivery. This was not this guy's first day on the job! The way he handled this thing up and down the driveway was pretty impressive.  Very cool lifter/loader thingy.  Yes, I do believe the accepted trade term for it is 'lifter/loader thingy'.  If not, it should be.

According to the metadata from Carla's camera, it was exactly 9 hours from drop-off to pick-up.  That is our old 1974 kitchen driving away.  The dumpster was working under 'don't ask, don't tell'.  The city of Arlington doesn't allow dumpsters on the street, they have to be on the property or driveway, neither of which is an option on our lot.  The contractor's usual dumpster company agreed to do a single day drop-off and I guess just not tell anyone.  Works for me!  The other option would have been to make trips to the dump all day long in the Mazda pickup. That would not have been fun.

Yesterday, Carla told me to shut up.

Well, she actually said the whole kitchen thing has made me a bit of a "chatty Kathy", but she's thinks it's cute. This is mostly from my OCD web surfing trying to get pieces and parts ordered and in the house by next week. Things like TV mounts, wire, sink, faucet, speakers... Stuff that is much cheaper if we provide it, but has to be here when it's needed! Right now I'm on a quest to find the best price for a black volume control knob and black drains for the sink. Believe it or not, black drains are not a standard stock item for Home Depot! People want shiny, sparkly chrome or stainless apparently. Oh yeah, we've pretty much decided on 3"x6" black glass tile for the backsplash.

I heard "Shut up!". Maybe I mis-listened.

Anyway... 6 days 'til demo and here's where we stand. The kitchen is 75% emptied (it violently disgorged its contents into the living room and dining room), but the office really hasn't been touched. That's coming. Ugh.

Due for delivery next week are:

Sink (from homedepot.com)

Faucet & Speakers (from amazon.com)

And a big box of wire 'n stuff from monoprice.com

We're buying local for a lot of things, but the price discrepancy for plumbing fixtures and the speakers was ridiculous.

Let me just give a short plug here for Monoprice. If you're not a geek, you've probably never heard of them, but you should add them to your favorites anyway. Anytime you need anything related to hooking up, mounting or making your electonic toys work right (or better), check 'em out! Their cables especially are a fraction of the cost of what you would pay at Best Buy or even Wal*Mart, especially for HDMI cables! If you need to hook up that fancy new flat panel, please don't fall into the Monster (Cable) trap at Best Buy! Monster Cable is a great product, but 90% of the price is profit margin. Check out Monoprice or Blue Jean Cables instead. Great products that are reasonably priced.

Back to packin'...