The Time Has Finally Arrived

WEEK 1: It is time. The contracts are signed and the work has begun. Bright and early on May 16th, the demo workers began the dismantling of our house. The first week called for the removal of the back room that was previously the garage, the south side overhang, the excavation for the new addition and the removal of the exterior siding and finally the interior work. The crew was there Monday through Saturday and have made great progress. Here is the before shot of the house.


The first "surprise" was the removal of the aluminum siding revealed cedar shingles that were painted green. I think all of our house was green at one time or another.

The entire upper portion of the house was covered in them. It made for a tougher removal.







Here is the sheathing on the side without the cedar shingles. This is a good shot of the back room and overhang that will be removed for the new addition.







Here is another shot of the back room before removal. It is completely made of cinder blocks. When they brought down the back we noticed some of the cinder blocks had newspapers stuffed in as insulation. Not uncommon back in the day. We found one dating back to the 50's when the home was built.




Here is the claw grabbing the overhand and bringing it down. Our neighbor took a great video of some of the demo and will post when I get it. Her little boy loved seeing the destruction as any young lad would.



Here is what I shot quickly of the demo.



Here is a shot of the front of the house around Wednesday. They made very good time.








Here the back room is finally gone. The back filled up the first dumpster and a few truckloads of concrete. Our contractor has many of his vendors recycle as much as they can. The concrete and cinder blocks are recycled as is the aluminum siding. The windows, doors, and cabinets will be donated.







Here is another shot of them finishing up the front of the house.







We were going to keep the chimney to vent the new gas fireplace, but there was some insect damage as well as most of the bricks disintegrating, so we are taking it down as well.






Here is what is left of the kitchen. The last of the floor should be gone on Monday. The kitchen is probably the worst off regarding structure. There was a structural beam that was removed and several beams were notched for the HVAC system. They attempted to attache other beams on the side but they were not running the entire span of the beam so they lend no structural integrity to the beam.



Here they have removed the upper windows and put Tyvek house wrap around it to protect the sheathing.







Here is the family room facing west.









Here are the kitchen beams that are squashed in between the new beams but do not help with the structure since they are not laminated nor do they extend the entire length of the beams.






I found this in the dining room area. I don't think it was hooked up while we lived there but was once. We figure the original owner had built the house himself and the HVAC system is crap at best. This is a portion of duct tube that was cutout with some tin snips and has a can of cold cream stuck to the end.





Close up of the cold cream can. I should of thought of saving this, but alas it is in the pile of junk in the dumpster.







Here is a shot of our bedroom. They have removed the windows and all the lower paneling. They did this in all the rooms upstairs. They also got all the ceiling fans removed.






This is the dinning room facing South.








We think it might have once been a kitchen or bathroom since there is a drainage pipe with an opening against the wall. You can see it in this shot in the middle. This is also a shot of the main structural beam in the house (green). It has been notched out as well and more than likely will have to be replaced ($$).




Here the excavation has started for the new addition and mudroom. Watching all the good dirt being hauled away caused me some heartache knowing later on we probably will want it for the final grading.





Before they could haul any dirt away, we had to get the clearance from the Illinois EPA. I had to sign a document stating that the property was not used for commercial purposes. Had to wait a few days for them to clear it so we had a big mound of dirt waiting to be hauled.





Well that is week 1 in a nutshell. Great progress. Can't wait to see what next week brings. We should have the interior demo done this week and the excavation should be completed. Need to have it inspected and then the forms will be setup for the new concrete walls. Will post back soon.