Demolition Treasures

Once the walls came down, we actually found some old newspapers stuffed in the area under the attic and above the main stairs.  The date on them was from April 1941, so we are assuming that is the date the house was probably constructed?  Or perhaps it was from installing insulation pretty early on because Zillow has our house listed as having been built in 1938?  (I haven't done the definitive research on what the actual year was yet...)  Either way, it was neat to see some of the pages.  It was in VERY poor shape, and most of it crumbled away when we picked it up.  We left most of it where we found it, but I got some pictures of some of the pages.

Crazy to think these are from before any of our parents were born!!!  But it was certainly interesting to see some of the original house prices in this area! (For reference, our house is approximately $300k now!)  

Demolition! (aka "Smash and Destroy")

Tim had a week off between jobs, so it would have been the perfect time to demolish the bathroom.  Until the kids wound up having 3 days off of school that week due to extreme cold!!!  Ugh.  Fortunately we were able to call in some favors and farm them out to friends and neighbors for two days while we got the nastiest, dirtiest, most questionable parts of the demolition done.

With an old house, of course we had some concerns about lead paint.  After using a bunch of test swabs on all the paint layers we could uncover, we were fairly confident the only place there was major concern about was the wooden trim on the inside of the bathroom itself.  After a bunch of online research, talking to a couple of remediation contractors, and (yet another) trip to Home Depot, we decided to tackle and address the issue ourselves by trying to seal everything up as well as possible, minimizing dust, and cleaning up well afterwards.  All of these are the steps recommended by the EPA lead removal information and website for homeowners.  A lead removal face mask, full body Tyvek suit, plastic sheeting, duct tape, and LOTS of garbage bags later, we were ready to take on full demolition mode.

Tim donned all the PPE gear and sequestered himself inside the plastic sheeted bathroom with the window open.  (I also hung plastic sheets in front of the kids rooms and kept their doors shut too, and Keira slept in our room as well for a few nights - her bedroom adjoins and shares an air vent with the bathroom).  

I donned a face mask too, but I mainly stayed outside the bathroom itself to haul all the buckets (and buckets and buckets and buckets) between the bathroom and the Bagster at the end of the driveway (down two flights of stairs of course...).

Partway through...

Tim used mostly hand tools (pry bars & sledgehammer were the real workhorses) to break up and demolish all the wall tile and plaster, and dismantle the closet framing.  The giant sledgehammer did the tub in, but amazingly, after removing all of the walls and even breaking up the tub on the original floor there was ONE chip out of ONE tile in the whole floor!  Well, a rented large demolition hammer did the floor in within 4 hours.  (yes, I got to bash a bit of tub, and to use the demolition hammer a little bit too!)

Leaving us with bare studs, and one heaped up Bagster, plus a few other bags and bits off to the side. 

(We were also left really sore for a couple of days, and I had bruises all over my thighs from all the buckets bumping down the stairs)  

We were a little concerned that they wouldn't pick up the Bagster due to all the concrete piled on top, but I did remove (and cut up) all the studs sitting on top, and I tied the handles together so that they still met over top.  It was picked up one day during the one hour that I was out grocery shopping! Boo... I had wanted to see how that thing got put on the disposal truck!