Demolition of a Bonus Room

I've had a lot of "firsts" in the last few years.  Especially, when it comes to renovations.  This will be my first, gut to the studs room that is NOT a kitchen.  So, when it came to tackling the space we didn't hesitate to get started. Kitchens just seem so much more intimidating.  The gas lines, plumbing, workable triangles and all that fancy design stuff.  A square room... I got this.  Actually, our contractor has this one.  We've handed off a bunch of work to the pros.  In the end, it will cost us more to hire these projects out, but we are really hoping to have this space done before the end of the year.  Or sooner.

Normally, Justin and I will take on the demolition ourselves.  In this case, it was only two weeks post-wedding, and I was still working on the kitchen.  So I had no problem redirecting our help to another room.  I'm glad I did too.

Especially when I got texts showing pictures of what they found in the walls.  I'm definitely no stranger to discovering rodents and bugs throughout my reno experiences, but I was happy to pass the torch this time.

I wasn't even home when they tore down the walls.  So I left for work in the morning with the room looking like this...

And came home to this.

Seriously, I think I like this whole hiring people thing.  How gratifying to come home to a job done.  If only I was a millionaire.    

That pile might not look so big, but it filled a 20 yard dumpster. 

Even though we don't plan to reconfigure this room we opted to remove the drywall. Before we turned this into a living space we thought it was a good idea to assess the condition of the walls, tackle any holes (where critters can get in) and seal up any cracks.  There was at least one mouse and a nest (or two) of ants.  That was enough to confirm that we made the right choice.

We threw all debris in the middle of the room, and rented a 20 yard dumpster early one Saturday morning.  Thank goodness we only had the thing for 2 hours.  Thanks to the recent flooding in the Detroit area, the dumpster smelled like it was fresh from a sewage plant. #ew. Apparently, you're supposed to request that the dumpster is hosed down between jobs. Filling the dumpster was something I could do, so I pulled on the gloves and helped filled it to the brim. 

So long popcorn ceiling and blue walls.

As for the insulation that was in the ceiling, we were able to distribute it throughout the rest of the house since we can't reuse it in this room.  Insulation standards change constantly, but the batting lasts for a really long time.  The guys took all the insulation that was in the ceiling and placed it on top of existing insulation throughout the rest of the house's attic space.  We found a few bags of new insulation stuffed in the rafters (thanks previous owners!) so we were able to double insulate the whole house.  A nice bonus as we tally up these Home Depot receipts.

The floor that you see in the picture above is plywood subfloor over top of 2x4 framing (with vinyl sticky tiles over most of it).  The current floor is insulated over top the original slab with a vapor barrier in between.  We kept this floor in place and just built the new floor over it. 

 

The guys framed the floor out with 2 x 8's secured to the wall studs, then ran 2 - 2x8's from wall to wall, sistering them up in the center at about 4'.  They ran some sistered-up 2x6's down the center of the room (from the window to the wall sliding door) to add additional support (so the floor doesn't sag or move over time).  Anyway, I didn't really concern myself with these details, I just watched it get done. 

 

Once they removed the sliding door and reinstalled it, it was looking more like the space we envision! 

I realize I glazed over the whole removing the sliding door, and reinstalling it, but I don't really want to go into those details.  They built a concrete base, moved the header up and reinstalled the door.  It took a full day, and several trips to HD to get it done, but it's done and we're enjoying the new sightlines.

We have to hire some of these bigger projects out since they're outside of our DIY abilities, but we'll be taking on some more responsibility again soon.  Stay tuned...