Day 6 - The Big Tear Out

Wow - what a day this was! Tim came at 8am and started the tear out immediately. He had another guy, Mark, working with him and they really went to town. After about an hour, the room looked like this:

They had already cleared out all of the cabinets, appliances, and countertops and were starting on the floor. Then after another couple of hours or so, it looked like this:

They had torn up the floor and taken out the soffets - no easy task because they were made of wood, not sheetrock, and they had to saw them out. It was raining insulation from our attic and it got very dusty. Around 1:00 or so, they left to get sheetrock, and the room looked like this - totally stripped down and swept out (he is so good about cleaning up as he goes!)

When the neighbors saw our monster dumpster in the driveway, they thought there was no way that we would fill it all. Well, guess what -

Filled to the brim! And tomorrow they will come and pick up the dumpster and I can get it off my hands! By the end of the day today they had made some electrical repairs, put in the sheetrock where the soffets were, cleaned out the whole area, carpet and all, and had mudded the first layer on the sheetrock. I was really amazed at how much they got done today. Tim had said that it might take 2-3 days just to tear out, but instead it took a few hours, and he already started patching up.

We also decided to just rip out the pantry shelves (which were in horrible shape) and rebuild those too. So, here we are at the end of a big crazy day. I realized today how much time I usually spend in my kitchen/family room. I just felt very displaced - not sure where to "set up shop" like I am used to doing. I think maybe this will have one very nice benefit- I may just have to banish myself to my craft room and sew and do some art. I was going to today but so many things kept coming up, so maybe tomorrow? This has been exciting though and when I walk into the torn out room, I feel like I have stepped into a whole new house. Tomorrow Tim will do more patching and do some painting - I think - especially on M's room, so we can get her moved back in. On another good note - none of the subfloor was damaged, despite our fears of what was hiding under the warped floor boards. It looks like it will be another big day tomorrow. I will try to get photos again (I really don't want to be in the way, so i just sneak photos when I can. :)