Go!!! DEMO!!!!

The best part of any house remodel? (Besides sitting back and relishing in the finished product) is Demolition. (Seriously, does anyone want to disagree with me on that??)

Literally the morning we were waiting for confirmation that we'd closed on the house (crazy to think that it can now be done all with electronic signatures and emails, when 10 years ago it was a big deal meeting with the closing agent and signing papers for days...) Quentin was ready with hammer and crowbar in hand, and only moments after we got the email (and sighed in relief, and danced in a circle), we jumped right in! All the trim and moldings came down, then we had such a party we tore the ceiling down, and circus left town... XD

Here's Quentin taking the wood paneling down in the soon-to-be-library/former-circus-tent.




After a great deal of struggling, they finally got the closet door out... Not only had it been caulked, and painted... But they had LOCKED IT! Had to fireman-kick the door in (which kinda destroyed the door and the door frame... But we're going to frame it in and drywall over it anyway).




Some of the super cool wallpaper we found under the wood paneling.






We also found some newspapers from the 1940's jammed around the window for insulation. Have to post some pictures of that!!

Taking down the acoustic ceiling tile in the front bedroom, we found this beautiful wall paper too!! (It's a soft pink/peach type color with an iridescent pattern on it)






Now we'd gone back and forth about maybe putting in a secret bookshelf that would conceal the stairs to the attic, and it seemed like an awesome idea... But unfortunately the stairs were super steep... Then my father-in-law comes by one day and says "why don't you just put in a real staircase, and have it come into the room?" Kevin and I both were like "ah... Duh... Why didn't we think of that?"

So, we got to work taking down the stairs.












And the very next day, Kevin went to work building a new staircase.



Not only did we widen the doorway, but we also have to take out a chunk of the ceiling to have enough head clearance to go upstairs. (Now let's pray we get all our permits for the attic, or this will just look silly).

Good news: there is a guy in our ward/neighborhood who is friends with the family, and he's on the city council... Sincerely hoping things will go well!!!!