Demo Ends but The Money Flow is Just Beginning

We are done with the demo of the broken house. As you can see from the following pictures, it's a mess, dirty, dusty, walls peeled, bare concrete floors. It's now ready to get put back together! Close-up of the existing stove cooktop, complete with a tile chip for a nose. Those things are EVERYWHERE. Even Stove Man is happy that the demo is just about over!

Because we're getting new tile and new countertops, there's really no point in cleaning these surfaces off, they'll just get messed up again until the new stuff gets installed. We are also getting new kitchen appliances since these are about 15 years old, and well-used. The house (and its occupants) deserve something new and beautiful. Painting begins tomorrow, September 23rd, and so does the tile install. Granite goes in on October 1st or maybe even earlier if the tile guys are done. These are *hopefully* the last pictures of the house all pulled apart that we'll ever be able to show:

And now some good news! Our granite kitchen countertops are on order, and here's a quick picture of what our granite is going to look like. The picture was taken outdoors, on our cement driveway so as to get the correct color in daylight (without a flash), and it's got browns and golds mostly in it. The floor tile is on the right, more on that in just a minute:

Onto the master bathroom. Tim finished the great wallpaper peel in there. We also removed the jacuzzi jetted tub. I don't have anything against jacuzzi's or jetted bathtubs personally, but I am not a huge bath person. I am definitely not a huge "looks like fake marble with a big crack in it" bath person. Even more so, I am not a "steps of cracked tile leading up to the romance capital of Florida in the fake marble bathtub" kind of person. So, the fake marble bathtub is history.

Tomorrow the area where the tub used to be will be dry-walled (just the walls of course), the tile will be laid, and we'll cap off the pipes for a future claw-foot, free-standing, soaking bathtub. I think it'll look nice!

We are also going to have granite countertops in the master bathroom with undermount sinks. I went to the warehouse today and I picked out a somewhat funky slab with "a lot of movement" as they say in the granite biz.

My gal Susan at the granite yard had been saving this piece for me, and I'm happy she did. The picture may not show it, but there are a lot of golds, grays, browns, and even pink in this granite. It's called Juparana Classic, and I guess it's from India. All that way to wind up in my very own bathroom!

Our tile installer also took us over to another client's house today to see the exact floor we are going to have installed! He has installed the same product in several houses with great results.

It is gorgeous. It's a French Pattern travertine tile with a rolled edge, and feels beautiful to the touch and it's beautiful to look at, and very nice to walk on.

Tim and I are nervous about the price tag but it's so elegant and nice, and I think will really make our house stand out. I'm excited to see it in our place!

Again, the kids have been so good throughout all this. And, as fate would have it, Norah is the "Student of the Week" or something, which mostly means that she has extra projects to write about all her adventures as a first grader. My thoughts: "Great timing, First Grade Teacher."

Thankfully we are finished with the extra work. Her big project? "My work on the broken house." Way to kill two birds with one stone. Here are a couple more pictures of the kids pitching in around the house, cleaning up Tim's wallpaper peelings:

The next time I submit a blog post, we should have paint up and floors being tiled. I am going to paint the bedrooms, kids and guest bath, and the laundry room, beginning this weekend. I want a funky color for the laundry room. Syracuse University orange or something to that effect. Pictures to follow!

To Quote Peter Gabriel, You Better Call the Sledgehammer

Considering what we had going on today in the broken house, I have been singing that song all day in my mind. I couldn't talk due to the face mask / respirator thing, could barely see thanks to my safety goggles, and had my earplugs in all day and so did Tim.... in fact, no one could hear me, so I guess it was ok for me to be singing "Sledgehammer" all day, cause that's what we did. Here's a quick shot of Tim pre-tile-breakup, in his "Viva Espana" outfit. Don't you think he looks like the Spanish flag?

We had high hopes this morning for a 25-lb. tile jackhammer to help us quickly and easily remove the tile in the broken house. Guess again. Mary Reizun took the kids out to a movie and then babysat them at our house, so we had a kid-free zone to work in all day. The tile jackhammer thing didn't work quite as spectacularly as promised. The best thing we did today was sledgehammer the tile out. Or I should say, Tim sledgehammered the tile out. I was mostly tile cleanup crew. I sledgehammered about 6 tiles before almost collapsing in exhaustion. Also, my hands and arms were killing me. In other good news, our air conditioner is up and running, our well equipment/water softener/filters are up and running, and I seem to have solved the wallpaper dilemma. I just got good at it after having blundered my way through the kitchen wallpaper removal. I now have mad wallpaper skillz.

Importantly, we also did our first budget check last night to see how much we have already spent, how much we have left to spend, and verify that we have enough to cover it. So far so good! I am happy to report we are on budget and just about on schedule.

Before I got to the broken house today, I picked out tile! I made two selections, just so I can have an idea on price. I am about 90% certain we're going to go with travertine tiles in a French pattern (picture to follow soon) and a rolled edge. Trust me, they're really pretty. We also picked out granite countertops yesterday, a kind of granite called Santa Cecilia. We were looking at Kashmir Gold (another variety) and actually liked it better, but the Santa Cecilia will go better with my cabinets and new tile floors. We'll probably begin installation in about 2 weeks. I had to choose between two very similar granites (from neighboring granite mines in Brazil), the Santa Cecilia and I think the other one was Giallo Gold or something... I went with Cecilia because 1) she seems like a nice Catholic girl, and 2) My sister Mary and I used to sing the Simon & Garfunkel song "Oh Cecilia" when I was a little girl and I have a lot of good memories of that!

Here's a great shot of me in my safety gear giving Tim the "what did you just say?" look. Actually I will admit, I was smiling in this picture, not that you can tell. We were almost done for the day, and I think I was getting punch-drunk. Tim would hit about 10-15 tiles, smash them up, and then I would come in with the push broom and put them into piles that we could sweep/shovel into double-bagged heavy duty garbage bags for the garbage guys to take away on Tuesday. The bags have to be less than 60 lbs each, but 60 lbs, in a great big black garbage bag full of sharp points is pretty unwieldy. I cut myself on my thumb once, and you'd think I'd have learned, but I really sliced my left thigh open too, it looks like I got clawed by an animal.... with claws. Tim told me to wear pants, but I forgot to bring them. Tomorrow.....



Here's a look at the huge pile of tile debris , oh and we had to move the refrigerator into the family room so that we could sledgehammer the tile underneath the refrigerator area in the kitchen. The dishwasher will probably be there tomorrow too:

We filled 12 or 15 bags of this stuff, and had to load it in the wheelbarrel to get it down to the curb. It's a mess, dusty, gets in your eyes, hair, socks, you name it. The face mask is a must because you don't want to inhale that thin set or ceramic dust. Hence, the need for all the protective gear. Poor Tim is back over at the house as I write this, I had to feed the kids, start some laundry, bring Mary Reizun back to her dorm at UCF, and get cleaned up. Not in that order.

Tim showered, ate supper, laid down to rest for a bit, and went back over there to get some more sledge hammering done. The poor guy, his head will be ringing tonight for sure. In case you're wondering what's the big deal, here's a little video to leave you with for the night. You can't quite, but almost feel the vibrations of the sledgehammer smashing up tile. It's tough tough work. I can honestly say we are both exhausted and sore, but this has also been a lot of fun too. We are having a great time together and we can't wait to get the project complete and show it to our friends and family. It is going to be a great house.