Out with the Old
And we're off!
Just 2 days after closing, I had the house leveled.
Haha, just kidding. But second to razing the entire house, I had quite a bit of demolition done inside the house. Just days after closing, I scheduled the demo and here's the laundry list of things that I had removed:
- Old built-in shelving in the living room
- All wood paneling and wainscoting
- 2 Layers of wallpaper
- Entire kitchen (including those delightful orange countertops)
- Wood framing near the HVAC
- Interior doors
- Light fixtures
- Vinyl flooring and carpet in all rooms
- Popcorn ceiling (which had asbestos, of course!)
*If you have questions on asbestos, I'm happy to share with you my experience. Just let me know in the comments below. Also, if you're in Austin area and need a good abatement company, I've got you covered!
ON TO THE PHOTOS
As you can see here, the wood paneling in the living room and the wainscoting in the dining have been removed and the vinyl flooring is in the process of being pulled up.
This is the breakfast nook off to the side of the kitchen. It was here that a friend discovered that the walls were not just covered in one layer of wallpaper, but two!
To the left of the breakfast nook is where the old kitchen used to be. I had the upper and lower cabinets removed. The gap in the drywall that you see is where the old cabinet bulkhead used to run. This is also after the popcorn ceiling was removed. You can see the damage that was left behind when they scraped the popcorn texture.
Next to the kitchen, you can see the drop ceiling that houses the existing HVAC. I eventually had the HVAC reworked to help bring the ceiling height there up a bit and to open up the hallway leading from the front door.
Here's a view of the old kitchen and breakfast nook. This was after all the major demo was done.
Here's a view from the kitchen looking towards the dining room and living room. Definitely some major progress, but still a long ways to go. You might not be able to tell from this picture, but after removing the old wainscoting and dark wood paneling, the space started to feel a bit brighter.
Knocking things down, well that's the easy part! Although it isn't pretty, it definitely helps to have a clean slate to start with when designing and laying out the space.
More to come, but if you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to share them below!