The Destruction Continues

We arrived on the island with zero intentions of doing much work at the house during our vacation. We figured we'd meet our contractor there and see what he quoted us to do the gutting of the main floor, since Chris found the task daunting after doing the upstairs in the spring. When the quote came in within our budget for the year, we jumped at it. It was a messy and huge job that we were glad to hire out.

As a bonus, one of the workmen took the ancient, broken parlour organ off our hands (it weighed about a million lbs.) as well as the old, broken sewing machine. My trash? Another man's treasure, apparently. On the last day of cleanup, they actually managed to also remove the two (yes, TWO: one oil, one wood-burning) dead furnaces from the basement.

We popped in to visit a few times, but didn't stay long because of the mess, dust, and danger factor (turns out small children and large renovations don't mix). I only got one nail through my flipflop, though thankfully it missed my foot.

In no particular order, here are some snapshots of the gutting process:

The boys inspecting the debris:

The back room/dining room, well on its way to being gutted:

Looking through the doorway into the kitchen. The wall between the small, closed-off galley kitchen and the back room/dining room is being taken out completely:

The back entry/mudroom/future laundry area:

A mountain of lath:

The living room, much the same still. The last we'd see of that damn organ:

More of the living room. The workers were under instruction to save and set aside any original architectural features, like these doors:

The staircase wall as viewed from in the living room:

Standing in the front entry, looking back through to the back room/dining area:

Andrew upstairs surveying the damage in the bathroom:

Cameron checking out the view from one of the back bedrooms upstairs:

Here's his view. It's not ocean, but I think it's pretty anyway:

Looking straight down:

The next day, the living room was gutted too. Here's the view from the living room through the wall into the kitchen area:

Here's the back room/dining area, mostly cleaned up:

Standing in the dining area, looking at where the wall came out to open up the kitchen. The pipes coming down the middle will have to move to an end wall:

The living room corner where the organ used to sit, all cleaned out:

The former owners actually left this next to the back door. Thanks!

The front door. I think it could use a little more curb appeal, no?

That's it for now. Next step, wiring. All new, including an upgraded electrical panel. Then drywall and hopefully a bathroom. All in good time, of course.