Demolition Weekend

We got started on the renovation this weekend.  It was all hands on deck for the demo part, which I think everyone likes because it is really just destroying stuff.  I can't tell if the rainy weather was a benefit or not.  On the one hand it was not a benefit b/c the weather was cold and raw and since the heat was removed from the house it was cold and raw inside the house.  On the other hand you certainly didn't feel like you were missing anything having to work inside during the rainy weather.  And if you were working you didn't really feel that cold. 

So lets see where we are at

This was my living room:

 

 

... this is now my living room:

 

This was the view from the other side:

 

 

 

This is the view from the other side of the room:

 

You can see my shiny new kitchen in that picture!!! Ahhh at least that room is done!

Now, before we tore these walls down we thought that the wall that seperated the middle room from the living room was the old counter from when this house was a gas station

 

But turns out that might not be so...when we removed that wall the hardwood floor that is in the middle room/living room ran directly underneath the wall. So the floor had to come before the wall and I  know the floor isn't original.  But how old is the floor - well we haven't been able to figure that out yet.  But we do know the heat was installed around 1993 and that was put in AFTER the mop board... but the floor might have come after that b/c the floor doesn't run under the mop board.  The mop board is looking original but the floor is not.  And if you take a look at the picture above and then look at the landscape of my house I am starting to doubt that this house was even in this location to begin with.  Questions are popping up in my head about this whole thing.  I know the house was lifted to put the basement it is not a stretch to think that it had been lifted AND MOVED!  My neighbors behind me have some ties to this house, I need to  pop over and talk to them as well as just go to city hall and see what I can find. And where did the gas tanks go that were in the front yard?  They would have had to have been dug up at some point but at what point?  I have much research to do.

 

Take a look here, that large beam running upwards in the middle is almost a dividing line of the house - and the framing changes on either side - one side has boards that are in line with the floor and others are open further down.

 

 

 

 

In the meantime we continue to work on this, I won't like I am  nervous becasue it appears my dad might not be able to finish this and my electrical skills are limited.  I was accidentially electricuted on Sunday when my dad left some tools attached to a live wire, which isn't like him, which leads me to believe he might not be able to finish.  That being said I wonder how much knowledge I can cobble together between me, Brian and some books...

between now and then the planning continues: