Project Marsh: Demo- Day 1

Yesterday after work, we headed to our house like usual. Our good friends, Brett and Morgan (who have remodeled a couple houses themselves) showed up about the same time we did. They had not gotten a chance to see the house yet so we showed them around. We were standing around having a beer, chatting about plans when they actually initiated starting the demo. (Sean and I had planned on starting that night but didn't want to force anyone into being involved).

And so it began. All that nasty (flea infested, may I add) carpet came up. The boys pulled the carpet up and Morgan and I followed them pulling up the padding. A gross amount of dust and dirt came out but the floors look so much better! Brett got to work on the tack-strips and Sean started tearing out the kitchen pass through and cabinets.

Last night's accomplishments included: pulling out all the carpet and padding, removing the tack-strip in the living room and demolishing the kitchen pass through and upper kitchen cabinets. The back yard was already full of trash left by the previous owner so now its really in need of a dump run. I am leaving for San Francisco for a girls trip tomorrow at noon so I will be packing, doing laundry and cleaning our current house tonight. Hopefully by the time I return on Sunday, Sean will have the rest of the tack-strips removed, the other kitchen cabinets removed, the rest of the appliances (fridge, dishwasher, oven) disposed off and the backyard cleaned up and ready for more demolition next week!
We love how much character our house has. Notice all the wainscoting throughout and the doors with original hardwood in the pictures below. Our goal with renovating this house is to keep with the times but update it. After doing some research, we found our house is categorized as "Queen Anne Victorian Cottage." Sounds fancy huh? Google it for a more complete description. We want everything to be fully functional and comfortable. While tearing out the kitchen we found a lot of original fir, redwood, and bead board that Sean held on to. At first, my thought was "Oh jeez, why are we saving this?! We are trying to get rid of stuff, not collect it!! I definitely gave Sean the look. But the wood is pretty cool and I'm sure they will turn into a lovely Pinterest project down the road.

We probably could have gotten more done last night, however we received a call from our neighbor around 8:45 that our pup, Jessie was eating a light bulb. We rushed home and she had apparently jumped up on the counter and pulled down a box of light bulbs and had actually chewed through one. Thank God our neighbor, Rocky, heard this and stopped her and called us. When we got home, she was totally excited to be in Rocky's house and getting special attention and had no idea she did anything wrong. We kept a pretty close eye on her today and she seems to be doing fine. Just a small scare.

And now... Pictures from Demo Day 1: