Give me a Sledge Hammer!

WEEK 1

Our very first night of owning the house, we started tearing the paneling off the walls where the water damage had occured.  We rolled up the old, mushy rotten red carpet and hauled it out and started removing the base and trim from the walls, doors and windows.

There were at least three, maybe four layers of wallpaper in that room.

On Monday after we closed on the home, I called Kevo and asked him to get us a dumpster at the house.  We were ready to get going on it.

During the week we took all the appliances out and put them on the driveway and started removing the upper kitchen cabinets.

Saturday morning... I woke up thinking "I want to tear down a chimney today. Thanks Nicole Curtis!"

First Chimney down below roof.

Getting ready to take down the second chimney.  This was a bit tricky trying to figure out how to get the cap off.

We took this chimney all the way down to the first floor.  

Girls enjoying the view.

We also cleaned most of the vines off the west side of the house and emptied the garage.  We figured we were going to need to store some of the doors and woodwork we would be removing in the garage.

We pulled the lath and plaster off the ceiling. We wondered if the sliding door at the back of the garage worked and guess what?

It did.

There were hundreds of walnut shells up in the ceiling put there by squirrels. 

The Original... Pictures of the home before we "went buck wild on the whole operation."

More Pictures...

Let's show you the rest of the house.

 Looking back into the living room, office beyond,  from the future dining room.

 French doors on the south of house that open up to the porch.

North wall of dining room has a door that opens out to the hall in the center of the home.

Out in the hall are these beautiful built-in cabinets. 

This picture is from the east side of the hall looking west.  The sellers used to play football in this hallway when they were little boys.  They said it felt so long and was plenty of room for little boys.  The little cupboard on the left is a storage closet and we were told that their grandmother used to hide money in it.  There is another cupboard just like this one next to where I was standing when I took this picture.  The inglenook fireplace sits between these two closets on the opposite side of this wall.  

 

The only bathroom is off the hall and in the middle of the house.  I love the tile floor and the tub is way stinkin awesome with the rounded corner and soft curves.

  

Unfortunately, this is just to old and yucky to keep.

To the left of the bathroom looking north, is the "pink" room.  The doorway connects this room to the room in the back left corner of the house and you can see the leaking roof caused damage in this room as well, above the door frame.  

 This is looking west out of the "pink" room window and you can see how bad the ivy has grown over the whole west side of the house. This will become our new kitchen space, and my kitchen sink is going in front of that window.  Goodbye radiator!

This "bedroom" was to the right of the bathroom from the hall.  At one time these windows would have opened out to the porch, but when they closed the porch in, this became an awkward space.  Technically it shouldn't be used for a bedroom because there is no egress, but I'm sure over the past 60 years of renting, many people used this for a bedroom, including the most recent tenant.  The sconces on the wall have round milk glass balls on the base of them.  I think they are so cool and I am hoping to salvage and reuse them in the remodel.

The kitchen was at the far right, east end of the hall.  Usually, the dishwasher was sitting right out in the middle of the room infront of the sink.  

 The dishwasher must have had some leaking issues resulting in water damage to the floor.  Check out these colors.  Orange on the wall, green base cupboards with white doors.  Can't wait to see this come down.

The back of the house originally had one bedroom on the northwest corner and the porch.  During the depression, the porch was closed in and the rooms were rented out to help earn extra money.  

 This is the original room and you can see the extensive water damage. Behind the casing on the door frame is where hubby found the picture of the oldest daughter, Doris.

This is the west wall of the same room and we had vines growing in under the casing on the window.  The carpet was like mush from the leaking roof.

From the far east side at the back of the house looking west there is the room I am taking this picture from, and then a room beyond, and at the far back, the water damaged room.   Notice the chimney popout on the left wall, cause it's coming down soon.

The Dining Room.

The dining room is to the right when you first walk in.  The buffet or serving cabinet is built in and will stay just as it is in the new design.  The doorway on the left is one of the beautiful pocket doors.  The doorway on the right enters into a breakfast nook or informal dining.

In this image, you can see the double pocket doors on the left that open into the office beyond and on the right, the main door that opens to the living room.

This is one of the bay windows with the built in benches.  These benches and the railing on each side match the railing and benches at the inglenook in the living room.  We are going to turn this into our master bedroom, so we are going to remove the benches and make room for our bed to sit in this space.

Just another view showing the pocket door closed.

Standing in pocket doorway and looking to the left, you can see the breakfast room.

Breakfast room

The second set of bay windows. This will eventually become the master bath.

Built-in corner cabinets and open to the kitchen.


A few last photos of the original home, then on to the demolition and remodel.

Basement

Future theater room.  That pop out on the left wall is the ash clean-out for the office fireplace.  Notice all the pipes hanging down under the ceiling.  We are going to tear all these out.  Several of them take water to the radiators upstairs.

The coal room, future Costco room.  The original kitchen was in the basement, and the old stove is still down here.  Again, notice the pipes.

Cupboard door on the left leads to the crawl space, cupboards on the right, possibly could have been the pantry in its day.

The boiler for the radiator is behind the waterheater.  To the right of the water heater is the ash clean-out for the main fireplace.  This closet on the left is where the dumbwaiter was used to lift food to the main floor and you can see the old wheels for the pulley system.  And again, all the pipes!  The ceiling is only 6'-8" so you really have to duck to get around all the plumbing.

We believe this must have been the laundry or washroom originally.  Could become a bedroom in a future remodel.

Crawl space

 Don't look to close, it's a little scary how it's just support by brick columns.  The white pipes are the radiator pipes with an asbestos coating.  We are not going to touch them, so they can stay right where they are.

 Attic

 There are basically two large posts supporting the roof ridge and the roof is all stick framed.

The furnace is located in the attic... apparently, box elder bugs love attics.

 If you can see the white porcelain knobs hanging from the rafters, those are the old knob and tube wiring and a potential fire hazard.

The main chimney.  This is coming down!

I have been a bit slow at getting my blog on lately.  Since we purchased the home, we have been working on it almost daily and usually until quite late.  I have been just a bit to tired, but I will attempt to get it caught up in the next few days because we are almost done with tear out.

Treasures!

Right off, first day working at the house, hubby, Clay, finds a "treasure".  In the back, northwest corner of the house, is a bedroom.  This bedroom, I've mentioned, had the worst damage.  Water leaking in from the roof and soffit, mold taking over, vines coming in through the windows, old, soggy red carpet turned to mush.  Clay was pulling some of the rotting wood casing off the door frame and found an old black and white photo of one of the daughters that grew up in the home, 93 years ago.  She is sitting on the porch at the home and looks to me to be about 12 years old. I snapped a picture of the old photo, and then dropped it in the mail to the past owner.  Over Memorial Day weekend, one of the grandsons dropped by and we showed him the picture.  He thought it was his aunt Doris, the oldest of the three girls.  She married Sterling W. Sill, famous author of "How to Profit from the Laws of Success," and other books, and also An Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in the LDS church from 1954 to 1976.

I am actually quite amazed that it survived as well as it did, considering it has been trapped between rotting wood and damp plaster for nearly a hundred years.  I also really love that you can see the house in the picture.  She may actually be older than I thought in this picture.  I saw that she got married in 1929, and the house was built in 1921.  What do you think?

Ok... a couple of other "treasures."

WWF wrestling cards.

 

And we found this book trapped in the basement closet where we removed the dumbwaiter.

This library book was checked out in March of 1973.  There is notice of a two cents charge per day for late fees, which makes the fine nearly $300 to date.  My little one wants to keep it, but I think I will call the Kaysville City Library and see if they want it back.

More to come... Indian head penny from 1903 (also found in dumbwaiter closet), newspaper from 1923, and other stuff!

 

Original home living room and office.

The Home is OURS!  Ready to see what our money got us?

The inglenook in front living room.

As you walk in the front door, this inglenook is centered in the room on the north wall.  It has beautiful built in benches on both the east and west sides and stain glass cupboards above the mantel.  The face of the fireplace is covered in marble, however, the marble is cracked in several places.  The floor is covered in rectangular tiles (marble possibly).  The wood floors are original, as is all the wood work.  The previous owners insisted that the renters never touch the wood.  Even though it was rented for over sixty years, it's all original.  The wallpaper in between the panels, is embossed and pretty cool pattern, with cherubs. The sconces are original and look pretty funky with our modern light bulbs installed in them.  The main light fixture in this room caught fire while the last tenant was living in it.  He removed it from the house (I think it is still sitting on the porch) and never repaired it (remember he is an electrician).  

This is looking to the east from the living room.  The room forward and on the left was the dining room in the original plan and will be the master bedroom in the final plan.  The room on the right is an office and will still be an office. The french doors on the right are one of the three sets that come in off the porch. You can see in this picture the missing light fixture.  Both of the openings to these room have the large, four foot wide, solid wood with glass insert pocket doors. They are amazing, I'll get you a pic.

The office, is located in the front right corner of the house.  The stain glass windows are in pretty good condition and match the cupboards above the fireplace in the living room.  I think the last tenant covered the window on the right to keep the eastern sunshine glare off his computer screen.  I have a great story about this room.  There used to be a large buffalo head hanging above this fireplace.  The original home owner and mayor of Kaysville, John Thornley,  went hunting buffalo,with Jack Dempsy, the boxer, out at antelope island.  The cabinets, are of course built-in, as well as the roll top desk (not seen).  Don't you just love the beamed ceiling?  The fireplace will remain, but just be unused.  It has the same marble as the living room fireplace, but it isn't cracked or damaged like that one.  

This is the beautiful, built-in, roll top desk on the west wall in the office.  You can see it is right next to the pocket door as you enter from the living room.  The light fixture is also built-in but doesn't work.  We are hoping to keep this room exactly as it is except for taking down some old wallpaper and giving it a fresh coat of paint.

This is a view back into the living room, on the left, and the original dining room on the right. Also, the old knob and tube light switch on the wall. The picture below shows just a glimpse of the large stained glass window on the front of the house.  You also get a shot at the wallpaper, and the radiator.  Love this room, so cool!