It's Done!! We move in tomorrow!

Sorry.. couldn't be helped.

Happy April Fool's Day! :D

Back in real life, Sunday is a lot harder to get out of bed with everything still sore from Saturday, knowing how much needs to be done.. But our amazing friends dagged themselves over for some good time fun! The worst part was dragging the endless cans of plaster and debris down the 2 flights of stairs.. Did I mention how freakishly heavy the plaster is??

After a couple dozen trips down to the already full dumpster, I discovered a great way to get out of stair duty: fall down them.
Note to my mom: I'm fine

A few minutes with some ice and some advil and I was off to the dump with another FULL load of lathe and other odd bits of wood, while the gang kept plugging away at the upstairs. We still have a bunch more to do up there, but ultimately the dumpster was full and everyone was exhausted, so we called it a day.

Here are some of the results of the weekend:



<-- This is the main part of the downstairs, which is looking much more and more like the workshop it's going to be.
















<-- This is the view looking from the garage toward the back of the house. There is a TON of space down there
















<-- This is in back looking towards the front of the house. Pretty much all that's down there is doors.












We have an abundance of doors upstairs, as well. This is in the front room looking towards the back.

Look at all that space behind the wall.. know what I see? That's right, closets!











This is the soon-to-be master bedroom, with what's left of the upstairs kitchen


As you can see, there's still plenty to do up there.










But this! This is going to be our secret room. It's behind the window over the porch.. only about 4 feet at the peak.. the possibilities are endless!

Saturday Demo Day

Did I mention the part about how we have the world's most awesomest friends?? Today was like a hard work day on the playa, but at the end of it all we had nice, hot, long showers.

(Sidebar for those who don't know what the playa is, or what we do out there.. on our summer vacation we head out to the middle of nowhere, with 40ish thousand other people and build a city. well, we build the arena the city goes to get all its aggression out. . pictures explain it better)

Bright and early on a Saturday morning we started tearing down the walls. AJ came on his way home from work and was the first one there. He and Dan started downstairs while I pried the molding off on the top floor and made a map of where it all came from on a copy of the floorplan. Since we had to take it off anyway, we'll probably take it to have it dunked. At worst it'll be easier to strip on sawhorses than on the wall. Then the upstairs wrecking crew came in.. don't let his size fool you, James is a pro! -->

Downstairs got entirely cleaned out, and we have a ton of space!

After all those walls came down, we were able to see how well our weeds were doing at taking over the house. Take a look->

We didn't get through everything upstairs, but it wasn't for lack of effort. The plaster we took off the walls was HEAVY. We could only fill the trashcans about a foot high before they were too heavy for 2 people to carry down the stairs.



We thought we'd only need a 20 yard dumpster this time, but it was full by midday (that seems to be a recurring theme) Donovan jumped up and down (without spilling his beer!) and got us a little more room, but I'll be taking another trip to the dump tomorrow with all the drywall upstairs, and all the lathe that's underneath it.

We started tearing into the kitchen and bathroom upstairs. This is Janel getting out some deep-seated hatred against the pink. -->

<-- And look!! Under the weird blue laminated drywall we have a clawfoot tub! yay!!

Brian put in another day of sitting around eating bonbons.

And Ayse and Noel, from Casa Decrepit, down the street, stopped by to say hi. All in all it was a full day, and we'll do it all again tomorrow.

Now with 80% less stank!

In a scientific study, we have determined that we have the WORLD'S BEST FRIENDS. Today was a day I wouldn't've wished on people I hated..

We had the biggest dumpster possible delivered yesterday - and were worried that it was too big! It was full by 3 o'clock and we have a whole row of full trash bags lined up for dumpster #2
Click on the picture of the dumpster to see how it progressed through the day.


Tre, in an act of bravery mixed with a whole lotta love, helped me clean the bathroom.

It was a mini-saga of finding one bathroom that would work, and getting it cleaned up by the time someone needed to use it. We found the door, which Christine cleaned, scrubbed the room out from floor to ceiling (fantastic mixed with comet cut through amazing amounts of grossness) and had it fresh as a spring breeze just in the nick of time.

Daniel managed to get the kitchen clear and seemed to double the size of the room.




Take a look at the front room. We went through an entire bottle of fabreeze, which actually helped more than I thought it would. Not as much as getting the dead rats and rotting food out, but it's possible to be inside without gas masks on now.


So the whole place is emptied out, and tomorrow we're going back to start cleaning. We have to get another dumpster before we can get rid of the rest of the trash. I feel bad about how much is still outside the house, but it'll be sooo much better soon.


And now it's my turn for a long hot shower!