floored - march on
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Pre-demo hugs
Floods, dust storms, and arachnids, and that was just the living room. I ended the last blog wondering what we were going to do next. Our amazing neighbor called us on to offer to pick up the drywall we needed. We don’t have a truck so this is a huge favor that we really appreciate. The guys came back with a 4-pack of ¼” drywall which is perfect for covering the existing drywall. An added benefit is that it would add additional soundproofing so maybe I wouldn’t hear the utility sump pump go off every single time. Michael and I managed to install it. It’s not perfect, but it’s done. The taping and mudding will wait for another day.
New drywall installed - not perfect, but done
Old trim removed. New 5-panel bypass doors
If you recall, we are replacing the doors and trim before the floor guys come in April to install both the floors and baseboards, so timing of door orders and installation is a factor. I put the order in for the two of the 4 doors we needed. One because we only have room for doors in the garage and two to spread out the cost. Like everything in the life of a 1960s ranch, nothing is easier and everything is custom. Our walls are not standard width, likely because they are plaster plus drywall. So a standard door is not going to work. I custom ordered our doors from Koopman Lumber in Andover. They were great with our kitchen renovation, so I trust them to help me with our doors. I picked a modern classic 5-panel door called Conmore by Jeld-Wen. I paired it with more of a classic 2 ½” colonial casing which fits nicely with the house. We’ve already started replacing some of the doors around the house - the two front closets that had the horrible louvered by-folds, as well as the kitchen utility door, which now I love so much! Eventually I needed to deal with our closet doors too, but we were already tackling the trim. We can live without matching doors a little longer.
Now that the doors were ordered, it was time to tackle the living room. That meant removing the rest of the door old trim, taking out the living floor rad, and hanging the drywall. Trim was easy and I had my sweet little demo buddy to help me. I held the crow bar in place and he whacked it with the rubber mallet (always with everyone wearing safety goggles). We had to be careful in places because the plaster is old and soft. The last thing we needed was another hole to fix.
After helping us relocate the old trim to the garage, Michael tackled the floor rads. Unfortunately, since it’s so close to the floor, it’s a bad angle for me to reach from the wheelchair. I say unfortunately, because I LOVE using power tools, especially MY power tools and Michael was going to use my Dremel to cut through the copper pipes** inside the rads to get them out.
Dremel Oscillating Tool-Toy
Two unexpected things happened. First we found a pretty large spider web. For the most part, I love spiders. Why? Because they eat bugs, a ton of bugs and I hate bugs. Every once and while though we find a spider big enough to give me the heeby-jeebies. We found two. They went to that big vacuum cleaner in the sky.
Big ass spiderweb
Big ass spider
Bigger ass spider
The second thing that happened was when Michael cut into the copper pipe in the middle of living. I heard “help!” and “I got water!”. These are never good statements when doing demolition. Now the plumber blew the water out of all the lines when we shut off this system (FOUR YEARS AGO),, but apparently some was hiding in this section. Not a little water, a lot. So I came running out to see a small flood of water and Michael doing gymnastics trying to move furniture and our area rug out of the path of water travel. Michael’s contortions would have been funny in other circumstances. No damage was done, but we both rolled eyes at the fact that we were almost at the last section of pipe in the house and none of them had water in them. I would however recommend learning from our error and also have a small, low bucket and towels nearby. Just in case.
Before the rads were removed
After the rads were removed
To cover up where we’d taken out the rads, we’d been using 8” wood boards topped with a header piece. It gave the look of beautifully tall baseboards, but also solved a major issue. We didn’t have to patch a big seam along the wall with joint compound. Instead, we could screw some drywall in and cover it with the baseboard wood. Problem solved. Except in the case of this wall, which was 9” tall and the baseboard would be too short to cover the seam. This falls under the “you’ve gotta be kidding me section” of home renovation. We’ll brainstorm how to fix that one later.
Too much dust
That project done, I moved back to the hallway. I need to sand the joint compound I’d used to smooth out the damage from removing the old paneling. To do this quickly and efficiently, I got a new toy. Yay! A new Black & Decker orbital sander. I knew this would kick up some dust. I did not realize that it would kick up this much dust. So although we prepped our space, we didn’t not prep enough.
Things we did:
Closed all doors and put towels underneath.
Taped up any holes where trim was removed around doors
Turned off the heating system so we didn’t pull any dust through it
Wore a medical mask and safety glasses
Covered the living room furniture
Cough, cough. Too much dust
Things we should have done:
Covered the door to the kitchen
Removed everything from the living room that wasn’t furniture
Covered the smoke detectors so they didn’t get dust filled and go off
Taped off the hallway to keep the dust in one spot
Worn a respirator
Michael valiantly tried to do a few of these things while I continued down the hall, up to and including holding a blanket up to block the kitchen. The sander kicked up so much dust, everything in the living room and dining room was absolutely covered. I was absolutely covered. I looked like I had gray hair at the end and my nose and throat were absolutely filled with dust. Dumb.
On the plus side, I did a great job filling and sanding and a few more tiny holes and I’ll be able paint the hall. However, I’ll be using a rubber sanding block. Onto the next step.
Oh and the electrician is coming in a few days to put up my beautiful, new dining room and bedrooms fixtures. I can’t wait to share with you on Instagram! Now excuse me while I finish cleaning the dust out of my keyboard.
** Note: If you’re doing this type of work, check your local area for a scrapyard. The metal and especially copper is recyclable and they pay you for it. We’ll get about $40 for this load. Not a ton of money, but a night’s worth of take out food!
