We made some pretty big steps forward in the demolition process this past week. Husband has done the largest majority of it by far, but I’ve been able to help with a few things. Mainly cleaning up the messes he makes and hauling the debris out to the dumpster. (Our first roll-away is full, we are hoping to get another one tomorrow)

Saturday we got a pretty early start and some of my family came out to help with the dirty work. It was HOT and we were all nice and sweaty from tearing down walls. It is a lot of work! We ended up calling it a day pretty early and headed out to Pickerel Hills to go for the first swim of the summer. The lake was a little bit chilly but it felt really refreshing after working in the heat. We ended up staying over night – the thought of coming back into town to our non-air conditioned house was not really appealing. Plus one of my sisters was there with her two boys and my grandma too, so we got to hang out and enjoy the company – and a great grilled dinner al fresco!

Sunday we headed back out to the farm to start working on plans. We got a few things figured out, took some measurements, tossed around a bunch more ideas, drew on the floors and walls with chalk, had lunch, and came home.

 

 

Here are a couple of pictures of what is going on right now. We took out the closet at the top of the stairs and the walls that separated the bedrooms. This is the north side of the house and will become the living room. Husband also came up with the most AMAZING idea for the west wall, but I’m not quite ready to spill the beans on that yet. Anyhoots, here are a few pics.

So these first ones are standing in the kitchen looking north. If you take a right, the stairs are there and to the left is a hallway and the bathroom.

 

And here it is now with the closet/bedroom walls gone.

That opens it up a little, doesn’t it? So now we have to figure out a window configuration for that north wall. We know we want nice big windows, but we also want some that will open. (We are open window kind of people!) I think we will probably end up with a mix of fixed picture windows, transoms, and casement windows. WHO KNOWS! Send me all of your great ideas though…

And now here is another set of pics. These are taken facing north east kind of back towards the staircase. The door in this first one is open and blocking the stairs, but just imagine that it weren’t, the stairs are right there.

And here is the current “during” view. If you look in the closet above, you can see those two white horizontal boards to use as a reference. The window is facing north, the stairs east.

 

Big changes, right? Good changes I hope…

Plans for this week are to get the rest of the ceiling and insulation ripped out and gutted, install some extra support in the ceiling, get some professionals out to help us decide on a heating system and windows, and who knows what else! Maybe we will get some of the windows and door ordered?! Don’t know but it is starting to get exciting!!!