A big day of destruction

Today I started on the Living/dining room. One of the owners before us had build in a front foyer with a small closet. We have decided to rip it out in order to really open up the room.

Luckily for me the construction was relatively new and thus had been drywalled not the really messy lath and plaster. I will have to do a little re-wiring and moving of a heating duct. The plan will be to build a bulkhead at the front wall which will contain all the wiring and duct work. It'll be about a foot by a foot, although I have not settled on that, it could be as narrow as a 2x4.

After about 3 or 3 1/2 hours of work, I managed to get ride of everything except the wiring. Next up here will be to remove the ugly ancient vinyl tiles. Actually the whole place is covered with them. Once they are gone I can begin building the bulkhead and a half wall that will extend 3 feet from the end of the bulkhead.

Obviously there will be some touch ups as well. In one area there is drywall that sits out further than the original lath and plaster; I am not sure what I will do. Maybe remove the drywall and patch it. I can't put drywall over the plaster as it goes all the way up the stairs. I guess we will play it by ear.

After the demo of the foyer I took apart the temporary room that the previous owner had built in our dining room. That went well, I even managed to get most of the garbage boxed up and stored in our backyard entrance area(that's a whole other post).

After finishing all that I was pretty close to calling it but then I turned around and looked at the awful fake wood panelling which was right out of the part of the 70s everyone is trying to forget. Maybe I just have an aversion to it...sorry Mom and Dad.

After removing the fake wood panelling and not knowing what to expect I was frightened yet relieved to find more fake wood panelling. I was relieved to find it, as it most likely meant lath and plaster. I spent the next bit exposing both the stairwell and the kitchen wall.

The kitchen wall had wood panelling on both sides which should make tomorrows demo quick and tolerable. With the stairs I found some lath and plaster which was providing the wall for the basement stairs. One of the previous owners had closed in the stairs to the second floor with drywall thank goodness.

So hopefully tomorrow I will get the demo on the ground floor done and most of the cleanup as well. I still need to tear down the beams supporting the second floor at the stair opening, I will be temporarily supporting it with braces. These will be replaced by custom made posts that are part of our new banister. Wait till you see it, it will most definitely be a conversation piece but more on that shortly.