Day Two

OK--today we have a real Demo crew. Three guys that are ready and willing to work. All of them are half my age so they are welcome to the job. I was told that demo would complete today--yeah, right. Well by 1500 the deck was gone and almost all of the concrete footers were gone as well. A quick check on the bathroom revealed that it was moving along, but it had a ways to go. The only way to get the cast iron tub out was in pieces--via sledgehammer. This was Starbucks' least favorite moment.

We had wanted to strip the bathroom around the tub down to the studs to ensure that there were no structural/termite issues. We did find a bit of termite damage, but it is very localized and not active. It should be easy to repair once the contractor starts to build the room back up.

So as day two draws to an end and the weekend begins, demo is 95% complete and the dumpster is 105% full.  Next we start to prep for concrete and stem walls.  We will need good weather for this but the outlook is not good.  We will see on Monday morning what the plan will be.

Day One

There is inertia in every project, and this one is no different.  The turnover of information between the contractor and the demo crew needed to be repeated.  Two guys showed up to start work at 0800.  Arrgh--I forgot that I would have to get up at 0700 for the next three months.  I definitely will need to buy more coffee.  The demo crew started breaking things at about 0900--and then a huge downpour started at 1130 leaving only demo work in the bathroom to work on.  One of the demo crew quit and went home.  Oh well, I suspect that he doesn't get another invitation to the ball soon.  The rain stopped shortly after he left.  I think that he took it with him.  About 1500, we had our first casualty.  The remaining demo worker got clocked in the head when a support post from the porch snapped when he was pulling on it.  No more workers--end of day one.

Day Zero

These are the picutres of the back of the house before the start of renovations.  I forgot to get a day zero picture of the bathroom but oh well.

The contract has been signed, 6ooo pounds of building supplies are in the garage, and, most importantly, we have a really big dumpster to start demo tomorrow.