Bringing down the deck was a pain in the neck!

Deck Demo Day!!  Our old neighbor Jack offered to help us with the deck demo...he wanted to use some of the boards to build his son, Pace, a treehouse.  We will have a new deck and screened-in porch on the new addition so we have to remove this deck before Galt Innovations can start pouring the footings next week!  It was another busy weekend!

One last look at the deck before it is gone...

Pace came ready to work:)

While Pace was hard at work, we started taking down the vinyl siding and removing the window.  Still trying to figure out something cool to do with these window weights.

Hard at work:)

Jack is loaded down with boards and headed home to build a treehouse!

Trey & I finished up the rest of the demo...

Mission accomplished!!!

Now how to move and what to do with these SOLID CONCRETE steps???

Kitchen Demo

This weekend we started demo work on the kitchen...we knew this was going to be a hard task.  We wanted to keep the upper cabinets and as much of the lower cabinets that we could.  The cabinets are solid wood and nailed to the wall with 3 inch nails.

We started with removing the flooring-first the ceramic tile.

The cement board under the ceramic tile was adhered to the original wood floors and we were not able to save them:(  Totally bummed about this!

Finally got the floors up and moved on to removing the cabinets...Trey had to use a kung fu move on one of the base cabinets...needless to say we didn't save that one:)

Something had apparently been living under that cabinet...now I'm really happy we stripped the kitchen down to the bare bones!

The floors are now completely removed!  That was a lot of work.  There were a few holes in the sub-floor that we had to repair...Trey found this out the hard way...LOL!

Here's the kitchen completely gutted...this is going to be so much fun putting it back together.

Before/After of Kitchen...

This was a very productive weekend...the kitchen is completely demo'd.  We have ordered all new appliances & LUCKILY found matching long leaf pine hardwood flooring at a salvage yard that match the den PERFECT!!  I can't wait to put this room back together, but that's going to be while.

Next up...bringing down the deck!!

We now have an open space & a dumpster!!

Can't put the sledgehammer away just yet...we have one more wall to go!

We wanted a little separation between the kitchen and the den but this wall with the see-through opening just wasn't what we wanted so it had to go!!

You gotta stop for a quick selfie when you have these cute pink mask on...LOL!

WOW...that was fun!!  No more walls.

Here's a quick before/after...

We were super excited when this bad boy arrived!  This was our first of MANY:)

Don't you think we needed one?

Next up...kitchen demo!!

Bringing down the wall!!

October 6, 2013...now that we have exposed the brick in the kitchen, the next project was to bring down the wall separating the kitchen and den.  I absolutely love having brick in the kitchen:)

Moving around to the front side of the wall...

Bringing out the sledgehammer!!!  SO MUCH FUN!!

All in a good day's work...

The addition plans are well under way, but we have a lot more demo to do before the construction starts.

Next up...demolition continues!!

Demo Begins!!

We closed on our house on September 25, 2013.  I am definitely never moving again because I totally forgot how many papers you have to sign!!  We headed straight to our new house afterwards and got to work!!!

The first thing we had to do was expose the brick in the kitchen - I couldn't wait to see it and was hoping it was still in good condition.  I still have no idea why anyone would cover that up.

We started demolition in the kitchen...we found out that the couple who owned the house actually had this pantry made to help sell the house.  We were very careful taking it apart and plan on using it somewhere else.

Pantry is gone...

Now lets get to the BRICK!!

The first mess of 1,000 we made during this process.

We couldn't stop with the kitchen...we had to at least take a peek at the brick in the bedroom (which is going to be Trey's office)

It is so much fun tearing stuff down!!  This brick makes us very happy:)

Next up...we are bringing down the wall between the kitchen & den.  I've got the sledgehammer ready!

How this craziness all got started!!

Let me start by saying that I did not want to move...I was very content with our house in Woodruff Lake.  As most of you know we pretty much renovated that house, too (even though it was a brand new home when we bought it).  We had been in our home for 16 years and I loved everything about it and have always known how fortunate we were to have the BEST neighbors ever.  We have made lasting friendships and that was seriously the hardest part for me in moving.  Trey loved our house too but he just had a yearning to move downtown...after months of coaxing and convincing me I got on board with moving and the riding around stalking neighborhoods began!  We would search every day/minute/second on Zillow to see what was out there - and suddenly realized this may take a while!  The only criteria we had in a home was we wanted a craftsman style, 3 BD/2 BA, and a garage...I mean that doesn't sound very difficult to find.

I take full credit in finding our house...Trey overlooked it numerous times because it was only 2 bedroom, I still can't believe he overlooked the ginormous garage out back, but he did.  I won't bore you with all the offers & negotiating but it all worked out and we became owners of a 1923 Craftsman!!!  We absolutely LOVE it, it is so "us" and we have put our heart and soul into it and have no plans of ever moving again!!

So...here is how the renovation unfolds.  Now when you see these "before" pictures you will see that there was nothing wrong with this house and we could have moved right in BUT what fun is that?

I LOVE the front porch...

The palm tree out front was a big selling point as well...Trey Whitley loves a palm tree:)

The HUGE garage...surely this will be big enough:)  I was excited, too, because there was a space for a workshop for me.  Years ago it was a motorcycle shop.  We found out that a lot of people didn't buy this house because of the huge garage...I guess not everyone knows what to do with a space like this - the Whitley's sure do!!

And now the inside...I LOVE the floors...we knew right when we walked in that that wall would be coming down!!

The kitchen...

There is a fireplace behind that pantry:)

The bedrooms & bath...

View from back of house...

So MUCH potential to make it our dream home...get the demo bar ready!!!

Since the house was only 2 bedroom we knew we were going to have to add another bedroom, etc.  and would have to hire that part out.  We met with Galt Innovations and Eli was willing to take the job with us holding the permit and Galt just doing the framing work (plus a little more).  So glad we did this because Eli had some awesome designing ideas and as an added bonus we made a new friend:)   We met some great people throughout this renovation...all the HARD work was definitely worth it...would we do it again? Hmmm...

Stay tuned for our first demo project!!