It’s demo day! (Isn’t that what they say on the show Fixer Upper?)
I don’t think I could be any more excited at this point. Obviously, when they showed up to dig our foundation, that was the first ‘real’ work being done on our house. But, it was also a little nerve-wracking since it was all so new and we didn’t know those guys (they were subcontracted, rather than employees of ContentoCo). And getting the foundation right is so important; Andrew had a big meeting that morning at work so I had to be the one to go outside and make sure we were all on the same page about the dimensions and things.
Once the concrete was dry, the contractors began demoing our porch. They tried to do as much on the outside of the house as possible in the beginning since we hadn’t moved out when they started.
There goes the porch ceiling!
Fun fact: they discovered a second ceiling between the existing ceiling and the roof. It was going to cost a little more to remove it, but it was the right thing to do. Additionally, we chose to rebuild the porch roof in such a way that would support that future dormer (makes the homeschool room and hall bath larger) I mentioned in the overview post. The dormer also really adds to the outside appearance of the house, which is another reason I hope we can do it one day.
One of the first things the crew did was take out our original ‘front’ door (the door into the house from the enclosed porch) and seal it up. Closing that space off allowed them to work on the porch with less noise and mess for us while we were still living in the house and packing up our stuff to move out!
Speaking of moving out…here’s a the single untouched corner of our downstairs, packed with furniture! (The rest is in the garage, basement and upstairs.)
Next to go were the windows and exterior door. They also built the structure for the new entry way.
There’s Maelle, checking out even more demo on the porch! Another fun fact: one of the guys who was demoing our porch is the older brother of a friend of Andrew’s from high school. (Turns out I’ve even met his parents at a mutual friends’ house years ago.) East Aurora is such a small world!
Andrew and Maelle even did a bit of demo on their own! This was a traditional coat closet at our back door, and while it was great storage, it also really made the back entry feel tight. We’d been brainstorming ways to open up the back entry but also keep a bit of storage there for awhile. We love the look of those ‘locker/bench/cubby’ units, so we’ll probably design one of those to fit the space.
The project includes a new wood floor in the TV room (pictured behind this closet), so we knew we’d have to take it out and (at a minimum) lay out the dimensions for whatever we decide to build there.
Up next: framing for the vestibule (entry) and kitchen addition!
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