Day 3 of demolition...walls no more

Day 3 of demo started out as more of the same...Stephen, my dad, and myself knocking down more drywall, opening up more walls.  We are getting pretty good at this now!  We finished the back unit by the afternoon.  So, besides the 2 bathrooms, all interior walls are gone.  That's right, in less than 3 days, we destroyed all walls of a 2300 square foot house.

Standing in the back unit living area looking all the way to the front of the house (seeing back bedroom #3, and front bedroom #2 and #1).

Standing in the back unit kitchen looking all the way to the front of the house.

One of the back unit bedrooms demo'd on this day

These closets were painful to demo.  So many corners, so much trim, and lots of drywall that was tough to take off.  I think I now understand why in a tornado you should head to the closet.  These things are the strongest thing in the house!

Looking from the back unit bedroom #1 all the way to the front of the house.

Standing in back unit bedroom #2 looking all the way to the front of the house.

Standing in the front unit looking all the way to the back door.

With all the walls gone, it was time to start on the next hurdle...the ceilings.  We had a little bit of time left in the day, so we decided to attempt the first ceiling demo.  We chose to attack the front unit living room.  My dad had the brilliant plan to cut/punch out a channel in the ceiling and then sweep out all the blown insulation through that hole.  We would gather the insulation on a tarp and then carry it out to the dumpster in loads.  This method took a bit to perfect.  We had to try different tarps, figure out how to punch out the channel, etc.  Today was definitely the "trial and error" day.  Here are just a few pics of our first ceiling demo.

After all the insulation was removed, we would then kick down all the ceiling drywall and haul that off.  Once the drywall was off our first 8 foot ceiling, it was like the heavens opened up...or maybe it was just the 12 foot ceiling opening up, but it felt great to see.  The first views of our tall ceiling.

Stephen taking in the greatness of our work ;)

We were packing up for the night, when the next door neighbor contractor came over to enjoy our new ceiling view in the front room.  He suggested that the view would be even better if we actually removed the 8 foot ceiling beams.  We agreed, and down they came...

The guys say "ahhh, that's better"

And I agree, its a much nicer view without those beams.  You can really start to appreciate the 12 foot ceilings and how open the space is going to be.

Look at all that lath and plaster.  Yes, that too will have to come down, but that will be another demo day.  Oh boy.  For now, I will just enjoy my high ceilings.

After 3 days (actually 2 1/2 if you are really counting), we demolished all the drywalls, one ceiling, and filled up a 30 yard dumpster.  I called the dumpster service on this day and told them we would need a new dumpster, and she said "already??!!"  Yes ma'am, we destroyed a house in 3 days, and our dumpster is about as full as it gets!  We are demo beasts!

Video of our progress and the ceiling coming beams down.