In one of our last posts I talked about how we were about to undertake renovating the old second floor kitchen. I mentioned how we wanted to simply put 1/4 inch drywall over all of the lathe and plaster to avoid a lot of the work and expense.
Leon K who is a loyal reader of the blog immediately commented that I should do it right and tear it down, insulate the outer wall and re-drywall. Damn you Leon! Of course you are right.
So…we did the demo today. We ripped out the lathe and plaster on the two outside walls and the ceiling. We also took off (and salvaged) all of the window and door trim. We did not remove the lathe and plaster on the two inside walls since we can easily put 1/4 inch over those.
This room is going to be a den / tv room. We’re going to mount a plasma screen and I’m going to completely wire it for surround sound. We removed the lathe and plaster from the ceiling so we can completely wire it for sound and add sound-proof insulation since it is below our daughter’s room.
Lots to do but we are off to a good start. Here are some photos from the demo:
Here’s me after the demo with a well earned beer:
And my good friend Ben who led the project:
4 responses so far ↓
1 Sarah K // Jun 26, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Keep in mind that my hubby (Leon K) is perfectionist…..not everyone is as crazy about the details as he is!!
You’re very very lucky. Your demo looks like it was a pretty clean job. When we opened up our walls, we found decades old insulation which I thought was asbestos and was going to kill us all. Turns out I was wrong! But scary, none-the-less….
2 Kirk // Jun 27, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Apparently the photos make the job look clean. In reality…not so much
I think all of these old houses have that scary asbestos-looking-insulation. There’s nothing quite like the dirt it causes as you well know.
Leon K is my hero. He told me to do it right and we listened to his advice. I wasn’t happy at the time…but now that it’s done we’re glad we took his comments to heart.
Cheers.
3 Elize // Sep 17, 2008 at 10:04 pm
hey — love your blog — we’re starting a reno ourselves and i’m loving all the info you have in one place! i have a question about what went into your demolition costs. we want to take down a long non-supporting wall as well as rip out ugly wood panelling in the basement. what do you think that the costs will be besides some basic wall ripping down tools, beer and pizza? i’m counting garbage disposal in a different category :}
4 anke // Sep 17, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Hi Elize
Thanks for your kind comment and good luck with your upcoming demolition.
Our costs were negligible in this category. As you mention the big expenses are tools, manpower and garbage removal. We had most of the tools and friends who were kind enough to help. So it came down to pizza and beer (as you mention) and several bins of garbage. I think we paid about $340 for each 14 yard bin.
At the end of the day the demolition was the easy part for us…it was all about the re-build where the big bucks began.
Cheers.
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