Demo – Day 1

The idea for day 1 was to demo the backside of the kitchen pantry that assaulted you at the entry as you walk in the front door.

Harrison got to participate in the demo of the wall. We thought that it was important for him to be there and not to come home from school for the first time to a house in shambles. He got to deliver the first blows.

Luckily the stupid pantry isn’t load bearing! At the end of day one we ended up here:

Kylie, mom and I focused our efforts on other areas of the house. That first day saw us dealing with varying levels of gunk. Starting with a little floor-glue that was grimy at the bathroom threshold:

To the disaster that what will some day be the master bedroom, but, for now we just call it the Stink Room. This is where our luck really ran out.

We knew that there was some pet issues with the house. On the tour the largest room didn’t smell great, but, we figured it was a just normal small-house-with-four-animals-bad… We figured we’d mop the cement floor in there to clean up any pet accidents that may have happened.

A little simple green seemed to improve the smell – we thought we were home-free… until Kylie started ripping out the baseboards.

The odor was absolutely toxic. And the more she removed the more intense the smell became and the more moisture damage we uncovered. And sadly the moisture damage isn’t all from the outside, there is evidence that the animals used the room as a toilet so frequently that they cause rot from the inside out. It’s depressing to think about for us having to deal with it now and for those poor animals. Kylie was the clear champion of the day, ripping out the entire room’s baseboards to reveal the extent of the damage, or so we thought. Dun, dun, duuuun… (to be continued)

Photos from Day 1:

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