Still more to destory

I thought demo was done, or I thought we could start putting the house back together yesterday afternoon when I was leaving the dump. But... today all the drains to the 2 upstairs bathrooms came out. All this came out...

And this:

Friday, Mr. C and I were going back and forth about demoing this bathroom. It was no we won't, yes we will, no, yes, no, yes. Saturday morning it was a YES and there it went. Bye, bye kids bathroom. Hello new demo crew.

Even though it was hard to see another thing destroyed in our house, it was a good thing. When a board was removed by the toilet drain, it fell off. Yep, it just fell off. The drain was just sitting in there not properly attached to anything. DISGUSTING!

I have been passing by the family room day after day with this awful tile that is a pain in the but to remove. The tiny jack hammer wasn't working too well and my mother-in-law suggested this little sledge hammer thing. I tried it and the tile went flying all over the place. It came out so easy, but needed a hard hit to get it good.

You know when you go to the gym and work your legs so hard that you can hardly walk up of down any stairs and they are all shaky? Well, that's how my arms felt after hitting the floor for about an hour. Not to mention the little flying shards that killed my knees.

That other bathroom we took out had a little half wall. We thought no way would that be load barring because of the location. Well it turns out one of the joists was cut, so it was holding that up. Mr. C had to go up into the attic and fix what was cut so that little wall could be safely removed. The attic is not a pleasant place.

Would you like to see some of my crew? From left to right: Hot foreman, Non-stop awesome demo guy, pop in help with what you need guy, electrician/plumber.

Now the better half of the crew. My mother-in-law has cleaned the kitchen probably 20 times in the last week, tried to keep everyone organized and she has cleaned up every mess all those guys have left behind while working in the back yard and taking my kids for some part of every day. We really couldn't do it without all this help! They are amazing.

While we worked yesterday the kids got to enjoy the pool for the first time. It was great for them and now little C doesn't want to do anything but swim.

Can you see, I'm a little paranoid? If I am not the adult watching, he has to wear his life vest.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a room painted. Maybe Tuesday we will have some bathroom drains back in place. Saturday is moving day. I don't think we will be moving into our house, maybe just the trailer at the side of the house. At least I have a kitchen though and it is roach free!! We did set off more bombs and I was relieved to find the house free of roaches this morning.

Demo - Day 4 and 5

I was hoping to be done with demo by now. But between Mr. C and I, more projects keep getting added to our list. I decided I wanted recessed lighting before the wood floors go in upstairs. If we don't do it now, we never will. Then Mr. C decided to take apart the kids bathroom just incase it leaks too. Everything leaks! I think we are almost finally done with demo, and we should be painting by Tuesday next week.

 First up are more roaches! The night after the bombs we set off, the termite tent went up.

Apparently the bomb didn't get all of them. I am so glad we did both and now we have roach bate out for them. See all those little dots? Those are babies.

All the tile in the entry is a much bigger job then I thought. It finally got finished today. I am so happy about that! Thanks Reed!

Here is a quick before of the entry to jog your memory.

And now, look what we have done.

Here is our master bath. All gone. Plus, the squishy sound board is gone along with millions of little staples. That was a days job. It's ready for plywood.

That bathroom leads me to the dump. I had a pick-up truck full of concrete to unload all by my self. It was so heavy, it went over the usual fee of $20 for a pick-up. Now, THAT was hard work. I think the guy working there felt bad for me because he went and collected all kids of things to give to me, I got a new hose, 2 new toilet seats still in their packaging, a towel bar, paint supplies and perfume all in their original packaging. All that from the dump!

Yes, I understand, that pile doesn't look so big when it is on the ground, but there is part of it on the side of the truck.

See how dirty I am, it was only an hour and a half into my day. Yes, I know it's blurry, but it's the only picture I have of me. I need proof I'm doing all this work.

We have fossils in our house.

You never know what is in your house till you tear apart walls. Now we know that everything is done right and there are no more leaky pipes, the pests are all gone and our house will be like new.

It's messy, but the trees are cut WAY back!

Now, I need to go to bed so I can get up early and work some more.

Tomorrow:
Finish removing tile in family room.
Demo kids bathroom.
Drywall prep

Demo - day 2 and 3

It's starting to get a bit overwhelming! Day 2 went really well, then things got added on day 3. Let me just show you...

Do you love that picture? We knew there were roaches because we saw a dead one months ago with a can of raid next to it. When we got the keys, that same roach was in the same spot. Nope, they never picked it up. Monday night we let off 9 roach fumigators in the house and garage. Those are what I found in the entry and kitchen! They were still twitching! Tuesday the fumigation tent went up and Thursday night we will do more roach bombs incase there were any eggs that hatched.

This next picture, I was not posing! Really, I stood up and was kind of helping myself stand because my back was hurting. Maybe I should see my chiropractor. Oh, wait, he is working with me on our house! Maybe he should take a break to adjust me. :-)

See that big hole behind me? It was fun when I started it, but it got a little overwhelming when I couldn't finish it all in an hour. That is the master shower growing into the linen closet. The heater was moved to the attic, so I have the old heater space for a linen closet.

Here is what exploded through the bathroom as we sledge hammered the back of the shower.

Once I gave up, Dr. C decided to finish the job. He was a little better at it then me.

This was a little surprise. A couple me drive up asking if we have any metal, C up there told them to look in our dumpster and come look through the house. We didn't want the counter top or sinks so they took it. That saved us about an hour.

Here is a little extra something that got added. Under the carpet was this spongy sound or insulating board. It was kind of gross, some parts were soggy and we didn't want pee smell coming through. We also didn't know how the wood would lay over it. So, C decided he didn't want it. That was a day project in it self with only 2 people working on it.

Another not so good surprise, under the carpet was this old 70's tile. This room is only about 1/4 cleared of it. SO MUCH TO DEMO! Will it ever be over?

At least C finally hired someone to do work. I am so happy about that. The over grown trees in the back yard are getting cut WAY back and some down completely.

I love that we can see some sky, but not the neighbors. Oh! and there used to be a rotted out deck there where the dirt is darker with 2 huge bougainvillea plants. Thanks Reed!

With the house tented, we are at a stand still till tomorrow. I bought paint today. I can paint the kitchen, but there is still a couple days of demo left. We won't be living in it when we have to move out of here in 10 days. Hopefully we are only a week behind!

Demo - Day 1

Yay, we got our key!!!

First thing, carpet!

My little helper, he works hard and loves doing it.

Tack strips are a pain.

Can you smell that through the computer?

Look at the amount of animal urine on that carpet I am holding! The next day when I got in my car, I couldn't figure out why I could still smell it. I had showered, double washed and I had clean clothes on. Then I realized, I didn't wash my shoes. The smell is in my shoes!

One of our new neighbors' (already a friend) brought us left overs from their dinner. Yum! Thanks Sarah!

Nails and staples, what a pain!

Lots of trim...

Break time.

Stay tuned for Day 2! Lots of progress.

Packing

Here is a little update I was going to give you last week, but we have got carried away in everything. We have been packing and waiting. All prepared to start demo on our house on Saturday. Here is what packing looks like when L isn't unpacking everything...

Bubble wrap is not popped,

boxes get filled,

and neatly stacked for moving day.

We were supposed to get our keys Friday night, but the current resident decided not to move out of our house on Friday. So, she said Saturday night late. We got a call at 11 pm saying Sunday at noon. We spent our weekend waiting... and waiting... and waiting.

Finally, Sunday at 11:30 am, we got a call, the key was under a rock by the mail box!

We were so relieved! We started a day and a half late, but we got to start finally.

One last thing to sew

Before I packed up the sewing machine, I had to sew one last dress for L. I loved the fabric and had already made her doll a dress.

Aren't they cute together?

Off to play. No time for photo shoots.

Ok, sewing machines packed and it's back to packing for me! Packing is a little tricky with C & L around. It goes a little like this:

Me: (Throwing away junk)
C: Mommy! What are you doing? I've been looking for that.
Me: Do you want to keep this? (A paper airplane, he has about 50)
C: Yes, that's my "special" one.
Me: How about this? (A rock)
C: Don't throw that away!

Can't I just get rid of anything?

Then I find L unpacking her boxes and pulling out babies... because the 5 babies I left unpacked were not enough?

Oh my goodness! These little rascals.

I have lots of fun ideas for their rooms, our bathroom and beyond! I am so excited. You can find me, if you know how (because I don't) on Pintrest to see some of the things I am liking. We are supposed to get our key's Friday and Saturday we will start ripping out carpet and trim. Hopefully I will have some pictures for you the beginning of next week.

Before & After - Pool

We have closed, but don't have the keys yet. Although, I do have the first before and after. The pool needed to be filled for the bank to lend on the house. I guess someone can fall in an empty pool and get hurt. They don't really care if someone falls in a full pool and drowns. That alowed us to take a morning and clean it. Wow! What a difference.

Here is the before:

The bottom was green under all those leaves. We had to scrub the entire pool.

And bag all the leaves.

What a difference, even without water.

Papa taking a lunch break. Is that allowed?

Done! Too bad the pump doesn't work and by the time we have the keys and can replace the pump, the pool will probably be green. At least it will be full.

Don't you just want to dive right in?