It was a great week to start this wreck of a demolition project. The weather was perfect. It was in the 60's, with a small breeze to take away the smell. Ray and I both have been dreading this job, so it was good to finally get started. We started by setting up the tools we'd need. We had trash bags, trash cans, shovels, pry bars, hammers, knives, saws-alls, rags, paper towels, rubber gloves, respirators, coveralls, head coverings, jugs of water, folding chairs and a roll away dumpster. Ray wore goggles - I just wore my regular glasses.
We set up some cleaning stations for hand washing and face washing before breaks. The house doesn't have running water. So we had to bring clean water.
As much as I hate to do it,
I'm posting pictures of the filthy mess that we encountered.
The living room:
The kitchen:
The down stairs bedroom:
The downstairs bathroom:
The laundry room:
The mudroom:
This is the other section of the ceiling in the mudroom, which was dangling over our heads. (Ray pulled that down on our second day of work on the house.)
The upstairs bedroom - left side of stairs:
The upstairs bedroom - right side of stairs.
The upstairs bathroom:
So now you see what a mountain we had to remove. And on Monday morning, October 16, 2017, Ray Chacon and I began to move this mountain. Ray began by removing the ceiling section that had collapsed in the mudroom. Another section of that same ceiling was taken down after we got all the rest of the stuff out of the house. I was waiting on the dumpster guy to show up before I suited up to go into the house. Ray started dragging items out onto the porch, to wait for their ride out of town.
When Ray pulled these old blinds off
the huge window in the dining room,
brilliant light filled the house.
It was a joyful moment for me!
Ray also started cutting up the furniture for better, tighter packing into the dumpster. No wasted space in the dumpster - it was packed like a Martha Stewart picnic basket! He cut the back and arms off the 6 foot couch, the backs and arms off 4 recliners and the back and arms off an easy chair. He flattened the bar and I cut up the bar chairs. The dumpster was delivered by Toby Buck. He was so great to do business with. He apologized for being late. Since we had not wasted any time waiting on him - we were ready to start loading.
After removing the furniture, Ray rolled the living room carpet up and was going to drag it to the dumpster but it was too heavy for me to help move it, so he cut it in half like a fruit rollup. Then he threw both sections onto the dumpster.
We called Toby to come get the dumpster
and please bring us another one
because we had not even touched the upstairs.
****************************
Day Two
I met Toby on the second day of clean out and since he didn't have a smaller dumpster available, he brought us another mid sized one and just charged us for the small sized one. It turned out to be a good thing because I had underestimated what all was upstairs. We packed this one full too.
Ray pulled all the carpet off the stairs,
which seemed to be in great shape.
There was a mountain of stuff - mostly small junk - upstairs. The closet in the right side bedroom was full of kid's games. Small bits and pieces would fall out of ripped boxes onto the carpet and mix with the carpet of animal feces at our feet. I was amazed at how Ray pulled the carpet off the carpet strips in the left side bedroom, folded it in to the center from each side, rolled it up in a tight bundle, we duct taped it in place and he carried that entire bundle down the stairs and tossed it onto the dumpster! Poop was everywhere in this house. The animals living there must have been as miserable as the home owner who let things go this far. Ray said he even found a soup pot in the laundry room that had poop in it. What a nightmare!
At the end of day two, everything in the house was headed out of town. The last dumpster looked like a scene from 'Princess and the Pea" with six mattresses / box springs on top of all the debris from the laundry room and upstairs. Whew, what a relief to be done with the clean out!
Day Three:
On day three, Ray vacuumed out the entire house with his Shop Vac and I washed off the items that we saved from the house.
Day Four:
On day four, Ray and I started removing the subfloor in the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom. The right side bedroom, the bathroom and the hallway at the top of the stairs has all the stinky, stained subfloor removed now.
Now it's time to see the before (before repairs) pictures.
Living room:
Kitchen:
The downstairs bedroom:
The laundry room:
The mudroom:
The drawers were set back into the house until
we can wash them and set them into the garage.
And the dangling ceiling was all removed.
The upstairs bedroom - left of the stairs:
The upstairs bedroom - right of the stairs:
(This room has already had the subfloor removed.)
The bathroom:
Someone suggested we check the floor boards - and we did!
(A secret stairway into the basement.)
No comments:
Post a Comment