Stage One - Demolition

Once we arrived from N. Africa 7/25, we spent two or three days getting settled over the weekend and then Grandpa arrived on Monday. I also had to sign the closing documents Monday which meant the house was mine on Tuesday.

With the keys in hand 7/29, we met the General Contractor Tuesday morning and ensured we were all on the same page. That afternoon his crew arrived and they began gutting the entire house. Our overall plan is to have an open floor plan on the first wall with as few walls as possible. With only 1300+ square feet overall I wanted to have as much usable as possible.

Demolition of the existing walls, floor, HVAC, electrical, etc. took about two full weeks to complete. I think the contractor underestimated a little the size of the demo, but we worked through it and the project moved on. The new problem was all the first floor joists were rotten and many of the second floor's joists.

With the new bad news that all these joists need to be replaced, we took a step back and started discussing what other problems had been uncovered. Particularly the interior walls needed to be reinforced with mortar and concrete and the exterior walls really needed to be fully re-pointed. To get all this done meant I needed a change order and my bank has to approve it all to proceed. Paperwork is never fast and since we had a few weeks vacation in Seattle starting 8/7, I knew things were going to move slow for a while.