Articles with demolition

Phase III Renovation

And so it begins. Actually, that is a bold face a lie – we are still quite a bit off from beginning of Phase III of VIB renovation, which is supposed to feature a full basement dig out. We did more or less sign off on the basement plans, and are now in the process of interviewing contractors for phase III. Once we settle on the candidate and price point, we will file permits (which require total budget number) and figure out how we will finance this massive undertaking.… Read the rest

Construction Day 10 – renovation part II start

Phase II is full steam ahead – no more wall!

Ok so when I came home I was actually kind of scared to use that part of the house, fearing an immediate collapse of some sort. But we are all good, my fears can sometimes be irrational. I did know that that wall was not load bearing – but still, I waited until Sergey got home to confirm that it was ok.… Read the rest

Demolition Day 6

I think we have reached the point where demolition, renovation, and in general the house — isn’t so much fun anymore, and in fact, we would like nothing better but stop breaking things and stop camping out and get on with fine living. Oh and blogging about this is also getting tedious. But show must go on. whine or not.and blogging will too, so i can remind myself in the future what it takes to do house.… Read the rest

Demolition Day 5

With our expanding plans, we are spending saving more money..on the demolition! Yep, it was time for the upstairs bathroom to come out. Our friend Kirill, who has been a superstar helper and hanger outer, came to lend a hand.

On Friday I cleaned out our bathroom, which actually give our tight space constraints already was a task in and of itself. Here are some before shots:

On Saturday, I took the first swing at the pinkbeige tile.… Read the rest

Excavation, Day 1 & 2

So how cool is this? Nation capital’s own ginger ale. Just one of many, many, really many bottles we discovered digging out our basement/crawl space below the kitchen.

Although a lot of the bottles were kind of cool looking, I must say the sheer quantity that turned up are quite astounding. Here are some shots, and these don’t account for all of the broken glass and some of the newer ones that we recycled.… Read the rest

Demolition Day 4&5 – No more floor

All of the hardwood boards have been removed, nails hammered out (or in) and we are left with the bare bones carcass of a kitchen/ powder room.

On friday night we started out with this:

And after three hours of prying and hammering out nails we were done! All of the wood boards are clean and ready to be re-used and re-purposed. I am not quite sure yet whether to toss all of these nails or keep them for the memory of good times.… Read the rest

Walls and floors and timing

We are getting a bit tight on timing, with structural builder coming in next Monday and actual kitchen work schedule to start June 1 (make it June 4, Monday actually). Plus we have been doing a bit of traveling on weekends for weddings and family/friends events, which makes weeknights the only possible time that we can squeeze in some more demo and prep work.

Obviously that wasn’t going to get our bricks walls clean and ready to go for June 4.… Read the rest

Demolition day 3

Not really demolition so much as cleaning up, prying off plywood, and cleaning the exposed brick. Our Saturday started really early – with a uhaul reservation for 7 am. DC dump allows uhaul size of up to 19 feet, so that’s what we got cause we were quite certain that we would need as much space as we could get to haul all 100 trash bags of kitchen cabinets, drywall, plaster, tile and whatever else miscellaneous crap that was taken out of our old kitchen.… Read the rest