Demolition, Part 2

Demolition, Part 1

Basement of the Lambs, Part 1

No doubt the basement to our house was once bright, clean, and dry—a laundry, a workshop, and a rec room. That time was long ago. Now the basement is dark, damp, and dreary: Dexter kill room, Silence of the Lambs "It puts the lotion on its skin," American Horror Story Asylum scary. Let's take a tour.

Come on in!

Right through here.

Don't be afraid.

Each cubby is just large enough to hold a human skull.

You should have seen this room before we pulled off the paneling and took down the drop ceiling.

Mind the low-hanging wires. Some of them might still be hot.

I wouldn't touch that.

Or that.

Why yes, that is a window. It used to let in daylight. Now it opens onto the utter blackness of the crawlspace under an addition.

Go ahead and poke your head inside. Go ahead.

Your shoes might stick to the floor in here.

I can't tell you what's on the floor. The samples haven't come back from the lab. Take shallow breaths.

Let's turn on a few lights, now. There, that's much better. Cheery, almost, with the breeder light.

Ready to go back outside?

Reuse, Restore, Recycle Part 2

Our Restore took all of our appliances.

Kitchen refrigerator

Kitchen range, complete with instruction packet

Kitchen dishwasher

Apartment refrigerator

Apartment range

There was wall-to-wall carpet in all the rooms except the kitchens and bathrooms. A neighbor pulled up and took half of it to use as landscape cloth in his yard. Thanks, Adam! A friend took most of the paneling you can see in the photo of Adam.

You can see from the above photo that, while hardwood, the floors were not salvageable. Some rooms had finished floors in bad shape, while others had beveled boards without finish—subfloor really. Our contractor Dave pulled all the floors up and put into the dumpster. That was a disappointment. We had hoped to donate the floor boards or reuse them in the new house.

The trim went the way of the floorboards.

We removed most of the interior doors and frames. By door nine I had finally figured out how to use the reciprocating saw. Thanks to Mads for her demo expertise, volunteer labor, and excellent company one long Saturday. We managed to extract one replacement window (circa 2000), but it was installed in such a way that it took over an hour. Unfortunately, that fact, and the subpar quality of the windows meant that they, too, ended up in the dumpster.

Dave and team detached some built-in dressers and bathroom vanities—better tools and nerve: Laura, Mads, and I couldn't budge them. All went to the Restore. Even the pink clothes hamper from the master bath in the middle left of the photo.

It's almost time to venture into the basement to see what fun we had down there.

Reuse, Restore, Recycle Part 1

When we bought the house, at first we considered it a building site with the misfortune of having a tired old house on it. The plan from the beginning was to recycle or find people to reuse as much of the structure and its contents as we could.

Once we took a closer look at the house, we started to find features that we wanted to save and use in our new home. We'll talk about those later. For now, let's look at what were were able to salvage and donate for use elsewhere.

We started small, and removed all the shelving, window treatments and hardware, and other reusable items, which our Habitat for Humanity Restore picked up when they took away the kitchen appliances.

Take the brackets and shelves, leave the painted toes. 

ADA cleat with towel racks.

So many shelf brackets.

Miniblinds, smoke detectors, switch and outlet covers.

Shelves, etc.

Vent covers.

We gave this and its mate to a friend.

Sadly, we were unable to find a home for this.

The Grand Tour

The house as it exists now is the result of at least two additions, culminating in an L-shaped house with a wing built off the back over two garage bays flush with the original basement.

The new wing is an apartment with its own full bath and kitchen.

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Master Bath

Bedroom

Bedroom

Apartment Entry

Apartment Living Room

Apartment Kitchen

Apartment Bath

Apartment Bedroom

Basement

Garage

Demo, Dig, Drain

The first thing we needed to do was demolish the rotting deck and greenhouse on the north side of the house.

Then we trenched around the foundation, waterproofed the block walls, and put in new drain tile. Note the green, mossy patina on the vinyl siding. You can't fake that.

Enter the Stone Slinger.