More Demo!

I have come to LOVE demolishing things. It is sooo fun, and very therapeutic. Next on the Demo list was taking the siding off the north side of the house and removing the fireplace and chimney. We were sad to see it go, really. My dad installed the fresh air fireplace and spent weeks designing and putting up the rock wall around it.

I spent hours, growing up, looking at this wall and imagining faces and pictures in the rocks. I still do it...I see faces everywhere it seems. I'm glad I had the foresight to take a picture of this before we started pounding away. It was a bitter-sweet experience for me. I actually didn't do any demo on this one. Steve was very careful about how he took the rocks off the wall and we stacked and packed them carefully. It was sad to see all of my dad's hard work ripped apart. We are going to use the rocks to make a fire-pit and some benches for the backyard....and I think we might have enough to do it for Mom and Dad's place too!

Right about now I'm sure some of you are saying to yourselves - 'what were they thinking ripping out that work of art?' or 'how heartless and cruel of them!' Well, there are quite a few reasons for the fireplace to go. Because this is a fresh air fireplace it was letting in quite a bit of cold air in the winter months and it also requires a lot of wood to burn a really hot fire. It is difficult for us to get wood now - we used to get it for free - and hauling the wood is hard for Steve to keep up with, with his busy work schedule. Also, we are building on a garage with a second floor addition on that side of the house, and we were not allowed to build around the chimney. We may replace this with a wood burning stove in the corner that vents a little differently in the future though. There will be a new 'family room' in the addition, so we're not really sure what this particular room in the basement will be used for, and it may not be practical to have a fireplace there.

Anyway, back to the demolition!! Here are some awesome pictures of the process of getting the siding off and the fireplace out. Thanks to the missionaries and Richard and his crew!!

Once the siding was off and the rock was off - then we had the job of trying to get the fireplace out and taking the chimney off - which I thought I had a video of...but I guess I don't. It was interesting to see our fireplace go out the front door. I still can't believe that only 2 guys carried it out!! it was HEAVY!!

First they took the top of the the chimney off and then the top panel of the chase. After that they they pulled the rest of the chimney chase off (which is what I thought I had a video of - and it was really cool) then they hauled it away.

Then they disassembled the rest of the chimney pieces and carried out the fireplace - with much maneuvering to get it out of the hole - and we were left with a gaping hole in the side of our wall - see below. ;)

The hole did get framed in and protected on the outside and this is what it looks like now - awaiting the rest of it's makeover.

This was also the day that we took all the brick off the front of the house so we could start framing the new front entrance. What a mess that was! Steve had fun using our new little trailer for our ride-on mower to move all the bricks around behind the shed. (which I'll post pics of later) We'll use all those for another project down the road.

A Slow Start

We weren't really sure how to start our plans for home renovation. We've never done anything like this before and our plans are quite ambitious. Steve has an aunt and uncle in High River that are builders and so she helped us draw our plans. Then we had to apply for all our permits and get quotes for everything to get our financing through the bank. There are so many steps and details, and waiting periods that we weren't aware of.

Steve, of course, got impatient to 'destroy' something and this is where we directed that frustration. *Remember-I told you I was bad at before and afters. We had already done some demo before I remembered to take some pictures.*

This is technically the master bathroom. Not very grand is it? Right now the boys are sharing this bedroom and bathroom because we moved our master to the basement - which i will post pictures of as soon as I can move all of our storage out of there and take a decent picture.

Anyway, this bathroom has needed some attention for quite a few years. We gutted the whole thing right down to the studs. Everything was ruined and mildewed through the years. Even the insulation came out. The shower base was the worst to remove...solid concrete! We actually rented a small jackhammer from Home Depot in order to get it removed. Then the bathroom stayed this way for quite a few weeks, until we continued our reno of the Main bathroom. That post will come next!

The Beginning....of the End??

This is a blog all about the renovations of our humble home. Here it is.

Sorry about our lovely cars parked in the way. I only had a quick minute to snap this before picture. You'll see what happens next in a later post. First, a little back story....

When I was 2 years old we moved into this house. My family has lived here ever since. A few years ago Steve and I moved back to town and we bought said house from my parents. It has been fun raising my children in my childhood home.

Not much has changed about the outside throughout the years. It's been repainted, the storm doors were added, the cement pad out front has been great, and the pillars were beefed up a bit a few years ago. Other than that....not much.

Now...on the inside. It was renovated quite a bit about 20 years ago. We started out with multiple colors of patterned shag - orange, blue, brown etc. Each room seemed to have it's own theme. We even had carpet in the the kitchen, dining room and bathrooms. Thankfully my parents had better taste later on. It's been repainted inside many times. New flooring a couple times. A bathroom was added downstairs. New light fixtures and trim. I think you're getting the idea here.

Even though we've done a lot of 'sprucing up' the basic footpr

int of the house had basically stayed the same. Well, that's all about to change! We love the lot and the location of our house, so moving wasn't a great idea. There were just a few areas that weren't really working for our family and so we decided to start some small projects.

We started with our bedroom - because who ever starts there? We decided we wanted to have a nice room to escape to when the renovating became too much. So, we knocked a hole in the wall to the spare bedroom and made it into a 'walk-in' closet. Repainted and new trim. New knockdown on the ceiling. Bedding, fireplace, TV on the wall....you get the idea! For some reason I don't have any pictures of the transformation. I'll have to take some after shots to post later on. Well all this construction got us going and so we decided to do a little more! and this is a sneak peek at what our house looks like now!

I'll post more later about our progress. I'll start from the beginning and catch up to where we are now. I'll also apologize in advance for the lack of before and after pictures. I am getting the hang of it now. But, most of you have already been to our house and you already know what it looks like. Or...what is used to look like!! ;)