Demo Day Trois...

Demo Day Three consisted of the dining room.  I know, some thought this was the nicest room in the house. Alas, no longer!  I have to say that I hate horsehair.  It served its life of 114 years, but it is so dry and crumbly, it falls apart in your hand and has become a permanent part of the wall paper.

Yes we did put up plastic and attempt to seal off the room, but the fine dust makes its way everywhere anyway.

Dining Room before

More dining room BEFORE

Dining Room interior wall BEFORE

A close of of the wallpaper which had faded to a preppy pink and mint green...

The wallpaper underneath the wainscoting

What was under the wainscoting on the wall that backs up to the kitchen

The 1970s wallpaper under the "wainscoting".  The kids wanted to keep it!

114 year old horse hair plaster ugh.

The hauling crew...transporting wood lathe and trim boards.

The "beams" are actually boards sandwiched together and difficult to remove!

The gutted and very dusty room...

Funky wiring - you can see an old doorway that went into a bathroom that was carved out of the kitchen space.

More dusty dirty house.

We did find two interesting things in the ceiling...

U2?  

1980s clearly...not sure who...

Outdoor Temporary Shower...

Wrestling the shower into place on the back porch

And it fits!

When you dismantle, and by dismantle I mean gut down to the studs, the only full bathroom in your house, temporary measures must be taken to ensure members of your family are still able to bathe.  Believe me, the children of this household would happily go the entire summer without touching a bar of soap. It wouldn't be quite so joyous for the adults.

We intentionally timed this renovation during the summer months when an outdoor shower is ideal. And yes, we are hoping to complete the project, at least to the stage of being able to shower indoors again, before fall, when an outdoor shower becomes not quite as refreshing.

I have to take credit for the location of the shower.  It is on the porch, but steps outside the kitchen door and it FIT.  The location does require disrobing outside the glass slider door, on the porch, but the location is out of eyesight of the neighbors. You might want to stay out of the kitchen during evening bath time!

The children are enjoying showering outside on the deck and my youngest couldn't wait to be the first to try it out.

During this past weekend amid dirty, itchy demo work it was a life (and skin) saver!  Much, much more enjoyable than our current bathroom, even in its pre-demolition state!

I highly recommend installing one.  You don't know what you are missing!

The view from the back porch

Thy middle name is demolition

My Partner in Crime...

Demo Day Two...

This summer I have been told that I have to increase my home renovation contributions.  Apparently blogging, documenting and picking paint colors aren't helping the timeline.  So, unfortunately I will be getting my hands dirty this summer.  Very dirty.

This is my partner in crime.  No we are not surgeons.  If we were, I assure you we would pay someone to do our dirty work!

Here are photos of the second day of demolition...

Fun with the Sawzall

The Electrician baffled by the circuitry...

Unfortunately you really can't get a good sense of how gross this is.  So here are some dead things that fell out of the wall.

The bathroom was added in 1973.  Space was carved out of the two bedrooms.  

Removing the wall between the bathroom and Cassie's bedroom.

Another shot from the bedroom of the now-exposed bathroom.

The bedroom/bathroom.  Not sure how my foot got in there...

The bathroom when there were some walls left...

The view from the hallway...

The highlights...

• When the husband tells you a circuit is dead, NEVER believe him.  
• When you gut 100+ year old outer walls, be prepared for a shower of mice feces and unidentifiable skeletons...Also the occasional intact mouse (dead and mummified).  WEAR A FACE MASK!
• Be prepared to vacuum and mop at least 100 times to get rid of the dust.  Then demo again.  

The daughter is not impressed by her new bedroom/bathroom combo.  She is plotting to move in with the neighbors for the summer.  She said "How am I supposed to get dressed?"  "How are people supposed to shower?"  "This is disturbing".  Wait until she sees the new (temporary) outdoor shower on the back porch (coming soon)...she may just give up bathing for the summer...

So it begins...(again)...

Summer has arrived.  The kids and I finished our last days of school and work together this year and now I am off for eight weeks.  Usually summer is about fun and recharging, the days are much less structured and we sleep in.  This year we are demoing the bathroom.  The only full bathroom in the house.  And I only have eight weeks until we return to the whirlwind that is fall - we hit the ground running with work, and school, and soccer.

Bedroom Corner BEFORE

You would think that demoing the bathroom would be limited to the bathroom,  but we have this small problem called a large window.

Originally there were two windows.  We had to gut the wall with the window to get a sense of what was originally there so we could order appropriate sized new windows.

We want to remove the one window, put the two windows back with a wall in between to separate the bedroom from the bathroom.  A STRAIGHT wall. The Current wall angles in to avoid the window and creates a very awkward bathroom space.  We want to make the bathroom a square instead of a trapezoid.  Crazy, I know.

Demo Day One:

Removing the first wall...

The first wall wasn't so bad.  It was covered with rough boards, but no plaster or wall board, so other than the occasional splinter it went quickly.

Of course then we had to peel off the thick plastic and get into the mouse dropping filled insulation.  Itchy and gross.

The first lively discussion was held about only wanting to do in this room what was necessary for the bathroom vs. just gutting the damn room.  The trouble with only doing part is that you live with a partially gutted room for a long time before having to go in and finish wrecking the place.  While your hands are already dirty, well...  I won't spoil it for you and tell you which side won...

Gutting the window

Yesterday we went to Home Depot and ordered two windows to the tune of $1K.  Ugh.  Yes they are Andersen 400 grade, traditional colonial style windows with wood inside and 3 over 3 grids.  We went crazy and got the stool.  If you don't know what that is, well let's just say I am jealous!

The bad news is that the windows take "about four weeks" to come in.  It is that word about that worries me.  That puts us half way through our timeline.  Ouch.  But don't worry, there is lots we can do without windows.

Stay tuned for more demo fun...

because what we really need right now is a puppy...

 Just like there is no good time to have a baby, there is definitely no good time to get a puppy.  Especially when your entire house (life) in under renovation and there just aren't enough hours in the day (week, month, year) to begin to make a dent in the to-do list.

We had a dog for 14 years.  He died seven years ago. We have had seven years of doglessness (note: not petlessness which is an entirely different category). Two of our three children have been pleading for a dog. For years.  As the years go by the pleading gets more creative, with letters to Santa and the Easter Bunny. We have said:  no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, yes??

Which of course teaching them that the more persistent you are, the more you can possibly finally wear down your parents.  Great life lesson.  But I digress.

Actually, we have had two close calls...  My helpful Mother actually brought a puppy to last June's birthday party.  We said NO and made her take it back.  That was fun.  Then we went to Puerto Rico in November and found four puppies born under the neighbor's truck.    The mother was a starving stray, very skittish and we couldn't get near her never mind catch her.  We took the puppies to the animal shelter who tried to save them, but they didn't make it.  It was absolutely heartbreaking.  We considered adopting a different dog from the PR shelter, but we were too sad. Then we found out they fly the dogs to Massachusetts and a number of them end up at the shelter in OUR HOMETOWN!

If that isn't the universe speaking, then it certainly is a lot of puppy-related coincidences.

In December, our Elf on the Shelf, Jolly received a letter stating "I would really like a puppy for Christmas, but if you can't I understand..."  followed by a phone call from the big guy himself (AKA Santa) and finally we agreed, that in the summer, once school was out and I had 8 weeks off of work we would rescue a puppy, hopefully from Puerto Rico.

So, this spring I did what any potential future dog adopter would do, I began stalking the adoptable puppies at the local animal shelter and saving them to my Pinterest board (note: all these puppies pictured have been adopted).

Follow The Pigeon Wants a Puppy on Pinterest.

I discovered that the puppies usually arrive on Monday or Tuesdays.  They are spayed/neutered usually the day after they arrived, and then they are available for adoption at the end of the week, usually on Thursdays or Fridays.  Most were adopted within hours of being available!  Those puppies go fast!  I had no idea there were so many other crazy people out there looking to rescue a puppy.

Anyway, last Friday we decided to go a look at the puppies.  This was a bad idea.  You cannot go and look at puppies and play with puppies and then go home without one.  What was I thinking?   I blame it on my subconscious. Of course we met the sweetest puppy who loved playing with the kids, who didn't bark (not once until we got home and she saw herself in a mirror), who seemed very friendly and who came home with us that day...five weeks early.

The husband has not quite forgiven me yet.  He wants to know what happened to our summer puppy agreement. The last time he checked, it was still spring.  I need to encourage him to get these things in writing.  So I am in trouble.  Again.

In time he will come around.  I am sure he will, and until then, well...perhaps I can give distract him with a bathroom to renovate...

The birds have been busy this spring!

The kids have discovered two nests with eggs in the yard. This one is at the top of the slide near their swingset. They put a wooden shelf that they made up there and some bird brain decided that would be a good place to build a nest and lay eggs.

If you look closely you can see a piece of the tarp from the shed that made it into the nest materials (it's blue near the bottom).  I wonder if the bird is rethinking her choice of a home since the kids disturb her about once a day to peek at the eggs.

The kids also found a second nest on an old tree out back that is covered with grapevines.  There were four eggs in this nest.  The eggs are also a fabulous aqua blue color, but bigger than the ones in the swing-set nest.

Imagine their surprise when they went to check on the eggs and instead found these alien creatures.  Baby birds are quite freaky looking, but they certainly know how to eat!

The three fuzz balls.  More wisps than feathers.  About 1 day old.  It was nice of Momma bird to put this nest at eye level!

If you look closely, you can see the fourth egg that has yet to hatch (or not).  

Another long night...

I had another one of THOSE nights...but I think I might know why...

I was so angry with the husband.  Really, really angry. Furious actually.  I don't have any idea why, but he did something bad.  I was so angry that I propelled myself out of bed, still asleep and I recall a lot of yelling.  I remember walking around the end of the bed and approaching his side (why? when I could have just rolled over) and then I caught myself, suspended between the dream, confused about the anger, and no idea what I was trying to do.

Sheepishly, I bent down and patted the cat, then walked back to my side and got back in bed.  The husband snored on, none the wiser.  I fell back asleep only to be awakened a second time, equally furious, and again jumped out of bed.  I yelled, "That's it.  I've had it.  I will not sleep in here!" and stomped off into the hallway.

Here I remember pondering which bed I should go sleep in.  I am a bit like Goldilocks.  I chose the Baby Bear's bed.  He happily snuggled into me and we went back into a nightmare-free sleep, until I woke in a puddle of wet.  Yup, it had been over a year, but I managed to choose the night when there would be a bed-wetting.  So at 3:30 am, after a change of clothing and a trip to the bathroom, we both headed back to my bed.  The husband probably thinks it serves me right.  Maybe it does.  I really should stay in my own bed.

The next morning I asked him if he remembered being yelled at during the night.  He said no, that he was tired and he slept.  

Then two nights later, it happened again.  Only this time I had only been asleep for a little while and I KNOW why I was so mad at him.  I am reading this book (he gave it to me) and the main character has Tourettes and is very OCD.  The husband came into the bedroom and didn't follow the correct tapping ritual for walking through a doorway.  The thing is, this ritual, if not followed, had some pretty dire consequences (don't ask me what they are, but they are bad).  The worst part was that he was not following it on purpose and he was smirking.  I think he was trying to see what would happen if he didn't follow the rules.  Or maybe he was pushing my buttons to see if I would react.  (Reminder, none of this is real).

So now I have to make a tough decision, do I discard this book that I am about 3/4 way through and opt for something safer, or finish the book and deal with the sleepwalking?  It doesn't seem to happen every night when I read it.  Perhaps I can get the husband to sleep in some sort of helmet to be on the safe side...