Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
Ok so construction day 2 did not bring us any surprises (unlike day 1) — though can’t say the same for our contractors. According to them, the second floor joists were not nearly the piece of cake like the first floor joists. In part because of the shoddy job that was done in patching them up before, and in part I imagine it’s much more difficult fit the beams into place than dropping the into place.… Read the rest
Wheeeee – it has started. We handed over a whole lotta monies, keys, took a deep breath and prepared to trust the professionals. The builder agreed to take pictures of Day 1 for us – so here it is in all its glory, i.e. new floor joists and leveled sub-floor:
To start off the day – nice and airy. It appears that our joists were not even in as good of a shape as we imagined, so all had to go (we did save them because the wood would definitely work as island butcher block)
here are all the new joists:
nice and level – apparently this is the hardest part of installing a new floor in an old house.… Read the rest
So how cool is this? Nation capital’s own ginger ale. Just one of many, many, really many bottles we discovered digging out our basement/crawl space below the kitchen.
Although a lot of the bottles were kind of cool looking, I must say the sheer quantity that turned up are quite astounding. Here are some shots, and these don’t account for all of the broken glass and some of the newer ones that we recycled.… Read the rest
All of the hardwood boards have been removed, nails hammered out (or in) and we are left with the bare bones carcass of a kitchen/ powder room.
On friday night we started out with this:
And after three hours of prying and hammering out nails we were done! All of the wood boards are clean and ready to be re-used and re-purposed. I am not quite sure yet whether to toss all of these nails or keep them for the memory of good times.… Read the rest
We are getting a bit tight on timing, with structural builder coming in next Monday and actual kitchen work schedule to start June 1 (make it June 4, Monday actually). Plus we have been doing a bit of traveling on weekends for weddings and family/friends events, which makes weeknights the only possible time that we can squeeze in some more demo and prep work.
Obviously that wasn’t going to get our bricks walls clean and ready to go for June 4.… Read the rest
Before we get to the good stuff – an update: we have found and signed a builder to come in and do all the structural work, including installing the french doors! more on that on Monday – their first day! And wood floor restoration people are coming on Thursday to tell us whether our kitchen boards are worth saving.
So it’s now been over two weeks living without a kitchen. So far, so good.… Read the rest
Pictures are nice, but video – well, its as close you will get (and we will get to remember) as actually being here. So without further ado, I give you progress from Day 1&2 of demolition
And of course, this would not be complete without the time lapse video taken by our friend Charlie Doud of what happened outside:
And finally, the progress from Day 3:
Not really demolition so much as cleaning up, prying off plywood, and cleaning the exposed brick. Our Saturday started really early – with a uhaul reservation for 7 am. DC dump allows uhaul size of up to 19 feet, so that’s what we got cause we were quite certain that we would need as much space as we could get to haul all 100 trash bags of kitchen cabinets, drywall, plaster, tile and whatever else miscellaneous crap that was taken out of our old kitchen.… Read the rest
It has happened. The point of no return has been passed. No turning back. Thanks to seven of our friends who turned out on Saturday for 5 hours of smashing fun :)
I literary do not remember ever being so physically tired in my life as after Day 1 of demo. I could barely lift my hands – I don’t even know how the dudes fared since they were actually lifting and heaving heavy stuff.… Read the rest
Looks like we won’t have to take apart the chimney after all. Although it does indeed exist on the roof as well as the second floor bedroom, it was actually taken out in the kitchen! I wont count our lucky stars because who knows what surprises await us, but for now, this is definitely in the plus column.
Another plus? this was kind of fun (smashing things up almost always is) and took just a few minutes from start to finish.… Read the rest