Hulk SMASH!!! The demo days

WE have a saying in our house (one of many). Our "baby" cat Finella who somehow thinks she is either a dog or a person, is the biggest brute and often goes crash around into things prompting us to use the term "Finny SMASH!" Well, during the month of April I think the term changed to "Lindsey SMASH!", "MB SMASH!".

The original plans to simply re-do the entire master bedroom, changed to, "well if this room, why not the other spare bedroom?" And "if that room? Why not all THREE bedrooms?!" One of the gloriously horrifying discoveries we, and apparently "dude" (what we like to use to refer to the previous 2 yr owner who seemed to have lost all steam about 2 days in would be my guess?) made was that the ORIGINAL owners...never primed the drywall before sticking up layers upon layers of wallpaper. Now, having grown up in a wall paperless log home I didn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation until MB's mother found out and I watch a look of veritable horror cross her face. As MB later explained, there would be no real way to remove the old, peeling wallpaper without destroying the wall. Great. Lovely. Such wonder, smart people those previous owners were.

When we originally looked at the house, 'dude' had apparently made an attempt to remove the wallpaper in the master bedroom and failed miserably. He had gouged the walls. This, plus MB's overwhelming desire to re-do thing the correct way and re-insulate, lead to the original plan of "master bedroom over hall". It was to my great delight, as I began the panicking decent in realization that there was near nothing I was going to be able to do about the walls in the other bedrooms, that I was informed that all of the bedrooms would be demoed and re done.

I got to the house one day (We lived in our apartment for a month after we bought the house before moving in. Something that saved us and our sanity I do believe), to find I could see strait through from my living room, into our master bedroom. You see, not only are all three bedrooms teeny tiny, but the closets? Hah! They are just comical. Another amazing MB foresight in this project, was to take the closet space in the living room (coat closet is my guess?), wall it off in there and GAIN another closet in the bedroom! This coming from the fact that MB knows there was no way I was sharing a tiny closet with him. I couldn't believe the change! It was kind of fun walking strait through one room into the other.

The weekend of Easter found MB breaking down and handing a flat bar over to me. I had instinctively KNOWN demolition would be fun as hell. I smashed, I ripped and crashed into things and kicked them! It was AWESOMEEE!!!! We spend Easter morning demoing the back bedroom and got so into it, I never had a chance to shower. We showed up to Easter dinner with me picking rubble out of my hair.

Demo was a joy. I mean, you get to destroy things! Even a 2 year old understands the sheer delight of demo. So much changes so quickly and you feel like your really making progress. However....once demo is over, you realize your house is no longer really "houseish", it's more 'construction zoneish". The progress for here is slow and by this point...we moved in. The idea that things would be done before we moved in had Long since been plowed over. Now, we lived inside our construction zone. Greatttt.

Let the abomniations begin!

I must say signing "the papers" on a house...FAR less climactic then I would have expected. Plus is doesn't help when they say, "well its a Friday and it SHOULD get posted by 2pm. But if it doesn't, you technically don't own the house until MONDAY so, uhm yeah we'll tell you later." By 4pm we had gotten word that we did, in fact, OWN the house and by 4:45pm I was on my home got a call from MB who was bursting to tell me something. Within about 30 seconds of learning we had closed MB sprang on the house like a waiting cheetah and had ripped up the carpet in the master bedroom. "I have surprise for you when you get to the house." Well I like surprises so this was exciting! "OK, well I'll see it when I get there," I said being all of 10 minutes away. "Do you want me to just tell you now?" This means that he is going to tell me now because he CAN'T wait so I didn't argue. "(insert long loaded pause here) Well, it's kind of an abortion (I would have used abomination in this context but hey, that's what the guy said!) but...we have wood floors in the bedroom. Actually, I think we may have wood floors in ALL the bedrooms." WOW!

So here's the thing, our new/old house, is a cute 1947 ranch with a 2 car garage and a added back den. The previous owners had built and lived in the house until about 2ish years ago when it was sold to some kid...clearly this didn't go well as we ended up with it. I will never, possibly EVER understand what these people were thinking. I suppose if I try to put myself in their shoes I can understand some of the choices they made, but you will see as I progress that a common phrase NOW spoken in our house is "What F$%# where these people thinking?!"
Any who, there was carpeting in every room but the kitchen and bathroom. All three bedrooms, living room, backroom, carpeted. This, obviously HAD to go. The first & original plan was to gut the master bedroom, put in wood floors, new insulation, dry wall, ect. adnosium because MB could do this "quickly and cheaply". Good. Great. Awesome. I just wanted a new kitchen! We knew there were wood floors in the living room and hallway but assumed we would just rip up ALL the carpet and live with, what we assumed was plywood floors in the other bedrooms. No biggy, we have no children, we only need one bedroom.

As I pulled up to the house and walked cautiously into our new home (OK this right here is the strangest sensation. It didn't really FEEL any different but it was a weird sensation know this was now ours) I turn the corner to find MB on his hands and knees attacking the floor with a flat bar, ripping up TILE(?!). So THIS was the abortion he spoke of. These PEOPLE (previous owners, weirdos) had taken it upon themselves, to plaster plastic tile OVER perfectly good wood floors with...get this, TAR! Yes TAR! The only thing I can liken this to is take a big wad of bubbalicious, chew it a few times, stick it to the sidewalk, grind it in, let it bake for a few days in the summer heat....and then try to peel it off. It was something like that. So as we continue to rip up the carpet in all of the rooms, finding BEAUTIFUL wood floors in the living room (Why? How WHO DOES THAT?!) we find to our joy...and later dismay that we do indeed have wood floors, under tile/tar mixture, in all of our bedrooms. When i sent a pictures to everyone of this weird scenario I got a text back from my realtor says "welcome to the 60s". Apparently, these PEOPLE (previous owners obvi) jumped on every new trend there ever was. This including but not limited to, plastic being the revolutionary new material of the 60's (its great! its wonderful!l it's the answer to everything! Put it on your counters, your floors, your dogs its suuuppper!) and carpet being the best thing since sliced wonder bread during the 80s.

Now, Here is an important fact you should note about me: I grew up in a log house. Yes, fascinating I know, but this is VERY useful information for the rest of this blog. Think about it, I grew up surrounded by LOGS. Brown logs. Heck my aunt & uncle not only own a log home as well but my uncle is a frickin log home realtor! and my grandparents? Well by the time I knew them and they were living at 'camp'....they lived in a log home too! We had wood floors (I thought everyone did!), we didn't paint things, we didn't have siding, we didn't have drywall or horsehair plaster or WALLS we had LOGS! These are all strange new bizarre ideas to me. You will begin to understand that I've got an awful lot of enthusiasm and skills and I'm a fast, eager learner...but all those things, do not experience make.

I learned how to rip up carpet easy enough but after weekend number one, down on my hands and knees, scrapper in hand, I learned this is not the right way to break a girl into a new house! MB and I worked a whole day scrapping the floors, the plan being to sand them. The tile had all been ripped up, they needed to be scrapped once, then slathered with chemicals in sections, and scrapped again. After one day I couldn't handle it anymore. I mean I can do hard work but this was mental breakdown hard and frustrating. You scrap and you scrap and get all excited and you sit up and realize you have been so damn close to the floor that that big chunk you got up...is really itty bitty tiny. My hands were bruised, swollen, bloody and beaten...and I only did it for a day. MB had HOLES in his hands from blisters. I draw the line there. We quickly learned that many people, when faced with this nonsense, simply rip up the floors and apply new ones or refloor over them. Not us. Ohhh no! We saved a TON of money but god was it a battle.

I was prepared for this. It took, all told 2 months before MB FINISHED the floors as other projects were going on but to say that little detail put our timeline slightly off is the understatement of the century. I was prepared for this. I knew. I knew there were always going to be stupid little side projects that get in the way that must be done before you can take the next step but this was far more than I had expected.

The begining...WHAT we were thinking...and WHY!

To start this blog I am going to have to go back, WAY back some, well, lets see....6 months ago. January.I PROMISE, this will be my longest post EVER. I have a lot to cover! MB & I had decided, after lots of fence sitting that we really needed to just buy a house. We had moved to a town for MB's work that was originally thought, not ideal from our standpoint, but then, quite unexpectedly, it grew on us. Our second apartment (our first being lived in for only a month for reasons-a-plenty) was in a way, a dream come true for a couple of old-souled early 20-somethings, out of college. I remember the day we went to look at the place and the first thing I saw was a DISHWASHER. I hardly remember the rest of the tour but I was sold right there. The apartment (the bottom & BETTER part of a two family. Our landlords had lived in our apartment and it had favored quite nicely as such) was cute and quaint and had a large kitchen, awesome deck and probably the best damn view in all of SPville. (as our little town shall here be known by ;) ) As much a I wanted (really, I did!) to buy a house and fix it up and make it our own, it was damn hard to convince me to leave the apartment! We had been there over a year and throw numerous casual dinner parties that grew significantly with each installment, and growing what can only be described as the probable best landlord/tenant relationship ever. On our last party however, I looked around our one bedroom, five room apartment and realized we did NOT have nearly enough room for all of our friends! It was one thing in the summer with deck and the yard but come mid-January it was bursting at the seams. Plus it should be noted, we are what you call BUSY people. We can only sit and relax for a total of...maybe 20 minutes before we need to find a project. we WANTED house projects. We NEEDED house projects! How fun would it be to have a house and something to do every spare minute of the day. Yup, glorious. We got the name of a GOOD realtor (damn hard to come by but when your father ownes his own home inspection company you get the non-snakes. This list included all of TWO people, one of which, was on maternity leave) and gave him a ring. We had tried this process a year earlier, got cold feet, and ran away thinking we weren't ready.

MB had become OBSESSED. He was on every house listing site from here to the other side of the planet it seemed and already had a list of a few properties we wanted to look at, all spanning about 6 towns. You see, the thing is, as much as we liked our town it is nearly an hour from our families who, believe it or not, we are pretty fond of. We were trying to find something in the middle but the middles, it didn't want us. We looked at the "Middle Houses" only to walk away discouraged with what our money could get us. I suppose now is a good time to tell you that although MB has a different job, he grew up under the tutelage of the most perfectionist of perfections carpenters, his father. CB (MB's Daddy-O), his brother and other son, MB's bro obvi., own one of the most well respected, 3 man company in the whole area. So needless to say, we ALMOST knew what we were getting into. We wanted a house with "good bones". Doesn't everyone? We didn't want it finished, but we didn't want it falling down either.

On our second weekend out kicking tires, we looked at a house MB had been slightly drooling over. I was convinced it was too much money. I didn't know you could talk down the price. Lesson #, oh lets say 32 of many. This house was NOT middle of the road, it was other end of the rd. In our apartment town. I wasn't so sure about it. We trudged our way through the snow, opened the front door, and instantly, I knew MB was in love. He's not much a goo-goo eye person but if your paying attention, and know him as well as I do, they were there. Outside he was all business but inside he was doing a little Irish jig. I wasn't so convinced. We looked at two more "middle houses" and sitting down with our good guy, we decided, heck! Why not? Lets put in an offer. It's not signing in blood.

After NUMEROUS rule changes mid development, sleepless nights, inspections, walk throughs, work on the house BEFORE we owned it!...after nearly 3 months of turmoil (and we had it EASY!?) we closed on the house. Hah! I thought this was the stressful part. Boy was I silly.