Bare Bones

For the last week, we've been demolishing the house for the remodel. It started off innocently, like, "let's paint the cabinets and redo the floors," and turned into a full out gut down to the frame. This is the point when someone would say that perhaps we've bit off more than we could chew. Thankfully, two good friends, Ray and Josh, flew in from LA to help us out.

Together, the four of us got SO much done! With lots of coffee and loud music, we tore that house apart.

this used to be the utility closet and master bathroom.

Me (in the coveralls on the left) and Ray tackling the nasty textured walls.

The dining area and living room area, in the middle of demolition.

After removing the first layer of kitchen linoleum, we found another layer of linoleum, and under that...a layer of particle board, and then the sub floor.  We (and by "we," I mean Mike and Josh) had to use a crowbar and rubber mallet to pry off the upper layer, piece by tiny piece. 

Linoleum was glued on top of linoleum, on top of floor, on top of subfloor.

We took off the kitchen backsplash to find black mold behind it. Ewww! So we had to remove the cabinets to figure out how bad it was, and remove some of the drywall. During the cabinet removal, I was SO relieved to have Josh and Ray there to do the heavy lifting. I imagine if it was just Mike and I, we'd have some injuries, and there'd be quite a bit of yelling.

The black mold behind the kitchen sink. Eeek!

But it wasn't all work! We got in a couple days of play, too. It was so fun to show our friends a little bit of Bend.

hot waxing their snowboards...

A view from the top of Mt Bachelor.

I joined the guys on their last day in town to go snowboarding. It was only my second time on a snowboard, but we took one of the big kids' lifts! I managed to stay upright most of the day, and definitely realized how fun it could be...once I master turning and carving. Hopefully by the end of the season, I'll have it down.

I love this pic, because I look like I know what I'm doing!

Now that the demolition is finished, we're building the house back up, piece by piece. This involves framing out our new utility closet and master bathroom, redoing the plumbing (since we moved things around a bit), and shellac-ing the floors to seal out all those decades of renter pet and child yuckiness.

Mike demonstrating where our new toilet will go!

A peek into our future master bedroom.

It's really cool to see the house completely empty and white - it's like a giant blank slate. I spent 30 minutes just standing in my future office and daydreaming. Sure, it could be the fumes from the shellac, but I think we're going to love our new space!