Contagious construction
When I first moved into the house I was excited to do a little fixing here, a little fixing there. Then I hit what I called the 3rd year slump, which basically boils down to "I'm tired. I don't want to do this anymore." And that's why I'm paying people to come into my house and fix it.Well this weekend I helped a gal from my church (and reader of this blog) do some demo work in her new house. She's recently come from a church sponsored trip to New Orleans where the group demoed some houses damaged by Katrina. Everyone I've spoken to who have come back from there raves about the work and seemed to be energized by it. So that same post-New Orleans energy was in the air, as well as lots of dust, as we whacked at her walls, knocking down Sheetrock and plaster.
With the right tools and extra hands, this knocking at walls business seems, dare I say it, fun. Also the brick behind the drywall and plaster looked beautiful. I know the case is not the same back at my house. We got a workout swinging the hammer, chiseling the plaster and whatever that stuff under the plaster happens to be. The process took me back to the new homeowner excitement of trying to imagine the space as something wonderful, once all the demo and construction has been done.
She's saving some money by doing the demo work herself. I could save money by doing my own demo as well. When I came home after knocking the plaster off her dining room wall, I felt the desire to demo something in my house. So I pulled up a little carpet. But then I realized I didn't know where's my crow bar and my utility knife is a bit broken, and I needed to shower, and I wanted to take a nap too. But I still got a little of the demo-your-house bug. I want to take apart carpet and demo some walls, the easy stuff, before the serious work of building and fixing starts.
Labels: renovation
posted by Mari @ 26.3.07
1 Comments:
Just a word of warning, we started taking up carpet at our place (the stairs and second floor were covered with ugly, stained carpet), and you never know what you're going to run into. The stairs underneath looked like they were assembled out of the scrap wood left when someone knocked down an outhouse. And they carpeted over loose razor blades, nails, etc. Each step had around 400 staples holding the carpet and pad in place, painful getting them all out. Unfortunately, when I hit the second floor landing, all of that momentum gave out.
Turns out the carpet was applied over cheap tile (luckily non-asbestos) that was glued over the hardwood floors. Prying up some of the tile revealed holes in the wood floor. So we just patched/leveled the landing and painted the stairs with floor paint. The rest of the carpet will have to wait until the major renovation when the whole floor needs to be replaced.
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