This photo signifies the beginning of a beautiful nightmare. You have seen the upstairs of our home in the previous post. With the existing floor plan, we enter the house from the front carport, turn left to go up the stairway that is positioned in the front of the house. Compared to upstairs, the first story is weird. The space is divided into two areas with narrow hallways and no bedrooms. There is an existing full bath and 3 storage areas: one below the staircase, another converted from an old spiral staircase, and the third converted from an exterior entryway and can be accessed from outside. Overall, the area is dark and didn't flow well. So, we made the biggest decision in our lives (in addition to buying a house) - renovate. We had all these ideas but couldn't quite organize them in our heads. First, we wanted to bring back the spiral staircase because it is cool and unique! We also wanted the main entry to be upstairs because of the cathedral ceilings. Then we wanted to create two bedrooms, a laundry area, a bigger full bath, and a gigantic family room downstairs. We realized we couldn't possibly have enough room to make 2 medium sized bedrooms so we decided to partly enclose the front carport. We managed to get a home design program and Bryan worked on what is becoming a awesome floor plan. He is quite the architect :)Our very first demo work was done in the bathroom. Before Bryan came home from work, I picked up a hammer and began busting the walls. Lucky guess, the first wall I hammered was one with an electrical panel and the electricity went out [poof]! Oooops, so I hammered another wall. Lucky guess again because the water line was behind the wall. Good thing I neva bust the pipes. With two close calls, I gave up and waited until my contractor came to teach me Demo 101.
Next is the stairway demo. This was easy because drywall was only on one side of the wall (the other side was the closet and the beams were exposed). If done correctly, you could take out the drywall in large single pieces to reduce the amount of drywall dust.
Here is what we did to the upstairs wall that borders the stairway. Scary in the early morning when I go work without falling in the puka.
That's it for now. Stay tuned for the story on the infamous French Drain.
1 comment:
That's so funny of how you busted those walls. I came home from work yesterday and my house went out of electricity. I couldn't call a maintenance worker like I used to while living in an apartment. So I used flashlight and played with the electrical panels until the light turned on. It was either a miracle or I was simply a good handy woman, haha.
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