Demo Day 2

DEMO DAY 2
05/26/2007

My father and two younger brothers came over to help out on this Demo Day. Also my brother-in-law showed up later and gave us all a second wind. As you'll be able to see below, we were able to get a LOT accomplished.

I rented a construction dumpster for the project, which was a huge headache. I had to deal with the WORST customer sales representative EVER and ultimately threaten to cancel my order before the company finally called me back and delivered the dumpster. The local contact, the gentleman who actually delivered the dumpster, was extremely nice and accommodating, though.

Well, except for the fact that they delivered the dumpster in my neighbor's driveway, after I stressed to them that I did not have a driveway and the dumpster would have to be parked on the street... but I was so happy that it was finally delivered that it was fine.

Below you'll find the AFTER pictures, taken at the end of the work day. I could not have gotten all of this accomplished without my family, and I really appreciate their help.


Dumpster in neighbor's driveway, already full at this point. One neighbor lady made a little fuss about it, but her landlord came over and she was very understanding.

I was so happy to actually fill the thing up, I had to take pictures. I was amazed. That's a BIG dumpster!

View from porch of dumpster. It was so long and wide I could hardly fit it in a picture.


Yes, that's a kitchen sink. Couldn't resist this shot. Look how full it is!


Inside Apartment B's front room. The ladder of death. It's slightly rickety.


That's where the two closets and fireplace were in front room, Apartment B.


Bedroom, Apartment B, looking into Apartment B's kitchen.


Standing in Bedroom, Apartment B, looking into front room.


Apartment B, front room, underneath window. See the water and termite damage here? I could crumble it with my hands. It will all have to be replaced. The was an ill-mounted window air conditioner unit here. Had they taken time to install it correctly this wouldn't have happened.


Front room, Apartment A. Looking in. I like the way the wood lathe strips look. They're coming down, too, though, eventually.



Woodwork taken down from Apartment A's front room. We're trying to salvage as much of it as we can to re use in the house later.


Back of front door for Apartment A. Look at the corner, how they built the walls. This is one strong house, I'm telling you.


Looking into Apartment B's front room from Apartment A's front room.


Looking into Apartment B's bedroom from Apartment A's front room.


Apartment A's bedroom, looking through into the kitchen of same apartment.



Same room, looking into Apartment B's kitchen.


Apartment A's kitchen, looking back up towards the front of the apartment.


Another view from the same room, looking over into Apartment B.


Apartment B's kitchen. See where the cabinets were? Look how someone patched the holes in the wall... with plastic grocery bags. A trick I don't think was effective.


Looking from previous kitchen back into Apartment A's bedroom.


Looking from kitchen of Apartment B up through the front of the house.


Bedroom fireplace wall of Apartment B. It's so open and airy. For a small house, this really makes a big impact.

Still in the bedroom, looking towards the front room of Apartment A.


Woodwork piled on a mantel, piled on the window frame in Apartment B's bedroom.


Looking through those closets in Apartment B that gave my good friend such a hard time on Demo Day 1.


Looking up past the lowered ceiling in Apartment B's kitchen. I'm going to raise the ceiling back to its original height. This is the only original plaster ceiling I've found so far.


Half the wall is torn down here in Apartment B's bathroom. It's so dark in there. I'll have to fix that, soon.


Outside wall of bathroom. I thought all the old and new wiring was interesting.


Front room, Apartment A, looking up through the ceiling to the bottom side of the roof.


Another vantage point of the roof. I like the old ceramic insulators here for the wiring.



Framing above the fireplace. It's amazing how much wood they used for this and it isn't even a load bearing wall.

I thought this picture was kind of artistic. The bamboo outside the broken window in filtered light. It was just neat, so I snapped it.


Weird little side porch hallway view in Apartment A.


Attic access point, through a lowered ceiling and into the original porch ceiling in the hallway. I wouldn't climb up there, though. See those wires? They lead to the panel boxes below in the hallway.


Front room, Apartment B, the back of the door. This door locks currently with a padlock. Inside, however, the tenants just braced the door with a 2x4, like what they do to castle doors in the movies.


Probably one of, if not, my favorite picture so far. I like how the door's half open and my face mask is hanging on the handle. Just cool the way this random picture turned out.


The view from my front porch. The tornado that came through town March 1st, 2007 destroyed a lot of the trees so now I can see all the way to the hospital, or what was the hospital in the distance. Luckily it didn't damage my house any. One street to the south houses were severely damaged (houses split down the middle, roofs ripped off) and less than a block down the street a public park was leveled, two houses were thrown in a ravine, and several more have now been condemned because of their damage.

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I didn't intend to post so many pictures, but I thought it was important to capture the scope of what we accomplished on Demo Day 2. Plus, I'll admit, I like seeing the pictures-in-progress.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to catch the blog up with what's going in in real life.