A weekend of discoveries

The weekend of November 13-14

This weekend, we had 2 very helpful visitors, Amanda and Patrick. Here they are:


Before we get to all of their work, let's check out the outside of the house:




The blues are spreading!! We also have some more grass:


Exciting. Although this picture looks more like mud. I swear the grass is there.

This weekend, Patrick and Alok started by insulating the master bedroom. They actually beat Amanda and I to the house, and here is where they were when we got there:

So, picture this area without insulation and that's what it looked like

Here was the process:

Patrick cutting the insulation


The insulation


Alex checking it out after smelling the pile of saw dust that she's sitting in; She proceeded to try to use the fiberglass insulation as a pillow. Not a good idea.







Amanda checking it out


Patrick working

And the lightning speed results here:






Seriously. Patrick moves VERY fast.

Look at what they found that was still in the wall:


That's the third music box we've found.

Patrick moved on to the small apartment closet (formerly the mold closet). Here it was when he started:


The process:


And when he finished:




While Patrick worked on that, Alok worked on destroying part of this wall here:

This is immediately to the right in the foyer when you wall in the front door


Alok destroying the wall and taking a look

Why, you may ask? We suspected that there was a hidden fireplace. We were right:

Here it is (obviously we have to finish uncovering it)


There it is

We haven't fully uncovered it, but it's pretty cool so far. You can see red brick going one way for the frame and another way to fill it in.

After all of this, Alok and Patrick spent the next two days finishing demolishing the laundry room. Here it is when they started (Alok had previously removed some of the wood):


Here is the very dusty process (Note: the splotches on my pictures are dust flying.... yuck, I can still taste it):








Look at what we found on the back of the door






Window uncovering




The un-covered window


Alok looking out the window


You can see the circle here where a stove would have been attached


Look at that dust.






Salt and pepper hair Patrick




Some dust on the kitchen floor

Here is the finished product:

One of the walls, with an old gas line it in for lighting


Random


This is the area that is still leaking!!!


Amanda and Patrick




This area straight ahead is the wall where the washer and dryer were


The view straight into the apartment bathroom underneath


The area under the newly uncovered window and to the left of where the washer and dryer were. This is the plumbing for the small yellow bathroom we're stripping out. This is the wall behind the yellow bedroom. It needs some cleaning.


Something was cut out of the molding in the hallway door to the laundry room


This pipe is on the back side of the door, which means the molding was cut for this pipe.... This isn't a gas line. Ideas?




Notice the exposed brick in the background


Lovely insulated pipes


The apartment bathroom underneath


The window with some crazy electrical run around it


The window.... if you look underneath it, you'll notice that you can see the outdoors


Hives that were found in the wall. There was also a small hornets nest.






Some great looking insulation at the top of the wall










(OK, that was a lot of pictures. You'd think that this laundry room was the size of a house)

Here's the mess (we're getting a dumpster tomorrow):







Here is the now lit up window from the outside:




You may ask what the rest of us were doing. My mom worked on priming the rest of the siding/trim for the outside. Here she is:


Here it is, finished! Now, we just have to paint it (which takes about 1/4 of the time of priming).






Amanda and I worked on peeling off the rest of the wallpaper in the apartment area. And by the rest of it, I mean almost one wall each. Again, some of this area comes off incredibly easy and the rest is covered in drywall mud. Here it is when we started:




The process:

Amanda steaming away. She just couldn't believe that she had been missing out on this fun for her entire life.


Amanda trying to avoid the dust flying from the boys demolishing party upstairs (yes, that's dust you see flying around)



And when we finished:





So, in the time it took Patrick and Alok to insulate 2 rooms, a closet, find a fireplace, demolish/clean up the bathroom, that's what we accomplished. Maybe we should just have torn down the walls.

So to recap we found:
A new fireplace in the foyer
A window in the laundry room
Honeycombs/hives (not so exciting)
A music box
Exposed brick/place for a stove in the laundry room

And we had a ton of help. All in all, a pretty great weekend.

Jessica