More ceiling demolition

Will i NEVER be done with ceiling demolition? i got the rest of the bathroom ceiling down and almost half of the kitchen. i was going to stay and finish the rest of the kitchen.....but it just got hot and i wasn't feelin' it. i was wearing a long sleeved shirt to keep the insulation particles off of my arms and i couldn't face another day of it. my husband actually came down, too and worked with me for a few hours. he pulled the 1x4s off this kitchen ceiling for me.

 He also unscrewed dozens of screws that were in the ceiling rafters in this room (the future studio). .. and pulled nails that i couldn't get because they were too close to the screws.

Although he is smiling here....it was a tough job. holding that drill over your head and getting up and down from that ladder.

This ceiling is now all clean...no nails, screws, slats or plaster. got to fix 2 split rafters in this room.

We did get the electricity all run and it is finished. i'm sure Rick is glad to be done with that project. i am going to order some windows next and when he installs those we will also lower the bathroom ceiling about a foot.

The next time i go down there ..... i swear i am not coming home until the rest of those ceilings are all down. i just have the bedroom and half the kitchen to finish. i am sick of ceiling demolition.

I want to do some pretty work. hopefully soon.  everything that would be FUN to do....has to wait till

Later

Demolition Days at the Duck

There was some serious demolition going on at the Duck the last few days. .... ceilings coming down.

And ..... drum roll, please......the GOOD thing is.....my electricity is now all run and i am wired up. i just need to call the electric company to come back out and put my meter back in and hook me up to the pole. Rick spent days sitting on the milk crate....wiring in all the little boxes. the tedious part of the job.

On Tuesday...while Rick was wiring up....i worked on taking down some ceiling in the dining room. i got just a few feet of slats down. tough, nasty, dirty work.

On Wednesday i worked on the living room ceiling. pulling down slats again and insulation. i just got a corner of it done. i was up on the ladder and found piles of insulation up in that corner that was just left up there. about 6 long strips. i guess when they were finished with the job they just left the excess piled up there.

I saw the teenage boy that lives next door - Amos-  and asked him if he wanted to work....and he agreed. this ceiling demolition is for the young...LOL.  so, he came over after school on Thursday and within an hour....had the ceiling in the back room down. give a boy a hammer and he has fun. LOL

Then he moved to the office and got that ceiling down, too. i just need to go up and clean up the edges a bit and take out the nails.

Here is my office ceiling...all on the floor. it takes a lot of bags to pick up all that crap.

Then his mom, Tammy, came over...i guess to check on Amos and make sure i wasn't treating him bad. hahahaha    she said she wasn't doing anything and she could help, too. so i gave her a hammer and she took out the rest of the living room ceiling that i started. she is little but she is fearless and tough.

Here's my living room ceiling....on the floor.

Tammy said she was off work Friday and would come out and help me some more. gee....i like neighbors willing to help you work. so, Friday she took out the dining room ceiling....and then cleaned off all the nails from the rafters in two rooms. it was a long, dirty 6 hour day for her.

She helped me bag up all the insulation and plaster and cart it out to the garage. there are about 60 bags there....awaiting the next dumpster.

And i have learned to bundle the slats up instead of just throwing them in a pile. it is much easer to get them into the dumpster when it is time. so i bundled up all these slats and piled them neatly in a corner of the garage.

On Saturday i took a break for the morning and my sis and i went to the Salvation Army thrift store to see if there was anything interesting there. i scored this tv cabinet for $50. it is in great shape.

I am going to replace that back with another piece of wood without holes in it. there won't be a tv in here....probably quilts or something. 

All in all....it was a great few days of demolition. i'll be down again this weekend for more fun. i have 2 more ceilings to take down...the bedroom and the kitchen. then i believe the major demolition is completed and i can start rebuilding and prettying up. new insulation...drywall....lights...ceiling fans.....fun stuff.

Although i do need some pipes for plumbing, too. i belive that should be next.

So much to do...so little money. hahahahaha      but it will all get done...sooner or

Later

The Duck is getting wired

I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Duck....supervising wiring. and Saturday was COLD. LOL  i tried to stay busy and move around to stay warmer...but there really isn't too much for me to do there at this time. i did do a lot of sweeping up.

But my contractor came in with his helper, Thomas, and they got wiring run. this is the spot in the laundry room where the breaker box will live. Rick is marking wires so we know which breaker is for which room. in the end we wound up running over 1000 feet.

Wires were pulled all over the house. this is the kitchen by the door going out to the garage. the little room to the left (with the red milk crate) is the pantry.

And here ... the front door.

And junction boxes were attached .... too bad the camera lady doesn't have a steady hand. LOL

And over 50 little blue boxes were nailed in and wires pulled into them.

And here

Thank goodness helper, Thomas, is a skinny dude. he got into very tight spaces to pull wire where it needed to go. he spent a lot of time in the attic and in crawl spaces.

If the weather cooperates this weekend i will go back so they can attach all those wires and put the guts in the blue boxes. fun, fun, fun.

And i did decide to go ahead and pull the ceilings down, too. i hoped to leave them in place but it is just not the right thing to do. the insulation .... what there is of it....in the attic is old as dirt and not doing its job so it all has to come out. it is actually easier to just take the ceilings down to get all that insulation out so i can put new up there. and then actually inspect the rafters to see if any of them need to be repaired. i already have found 2 of them that are cracked. and this way i will know exactly what is in my house. and there are pipes up there that need to be cut out, too. more fun, fun, fun. LOL

My job in the ceiling takedown will be to get the scaffolding over there from the Beast and pull off the 1x4s that the ceiling tiles were stapled to. then the guys can pull down the plaster and slats and all that ugly, noxious insulation.

So the next few days will be a flurry of activity to wrap things up in the studio for this month so i can leave again on Friday. so, if you don't hear from me again this week.....i am channeling a whirlwind. LOL

Talk to ya

Later

Working at the Duck

I drug hubby along....and the dog...and we went up to the Duck on Thursday afternoon. my plan thursday evening was to cut the grass but it was still drizzling...as it had been all day and things were too wet. so we just set up a run for the dog between 2 clothesline poles that were out in the side yard. she has never been tied up and was not too fond of the idea. but i don't have a fence there and the inside of the house just wasn't safe with nails all around and plaster dust. we got her a new harness....just for this purpose.

I gave her a bucket of water and went out and checked on her every once in a while. See that pile of lumber in the back of the picture...by the garage....those are slats pulled off the walls...full of nails. i went out to check on Suzy and her chain went over into that pile of wood. so, i'm thinking...great she's stuck up in there and probably got stuck by a couple nails, too. i go over and call to her...no answer....i pull on the chain...all that comes up is her harness....no Suzy. little Houdini has somehow gotten out of the harness.

So by now i am panicing...where is she....i start yelling for her...and yell for Jim... he comes to the doorway to see what i am hollering about. i tell him Suzy is gone.  then he hears a noise...turns around....and here comes Suzy.....COMING OUT OF THE HOUSE.    WTH??   we can only guess that she got stuck up in the lumber, wiggled her way out of the harness....and came into the house...where she wanted to be the whole time. but, when she came in....she didn't come and find one of us....she just went and hid somewhere so no one knew she was in the house. goofy dog. but it didn't do her much good. i tightened up the harness and Jim put a stop on the run so she couldn't get to the lumber. and she wound up back outside again.

I pulled the rest of the plaster off the walls in the bedroom, 1 wall in the dining room, and the rest of the living room. and pulled slats off one living room wall. and pulled nails out of the studs in the office, bedroom, closet, and whatever was showing in the living room. about a thousand nails....for a couple hours. when you pull off the slats...usually the nails stay in the studs.....so i pulled lots and lots of nails. pulling nails is a good thing...it prevents holes in your shirts and shorts when you go up and down the ladder and get too close to the nails and get stuck. and they all have to be pulled eventually anyway.

We also took a cabinet off the wall in the kitchen. it was above the stove and i didn't want it there. and took down the stuff above the cabinet, too. i don't know why people frame in the tops of cabinets and close in that space...it is wasted space that way. i took the plaster and lath strips off that wall, too. i have piles of plaster all over the house. LOL  i hate picking it all up and dragging it to the garage. i hire a guy to do that for me but he didn't work this weekend..... holiday weekend, so he was probably at the lake somewhere.

Hubby took the old electric boxes with fuses out of the basement and looked at the electric in the garage...trying to figure out what the past owner did. and he took the old ceiling fans down for me, too. and did major weed eating all around the property after i cut the grass. he said he would work for food...LOL....so he picked all his favorites that he didn't have at home....Long John Silver fish...KFC chicken....Sergio's Mexican...and Taco Bell.  here i caught him taking a break.

I pulled a small trailer with my riding mower down to the Duck this time. i was a bit nervous since i hadn't pulled a trailer with my truck before. and my truck is 15 years old and has a problem getting up hills that are a long grade. but it managed to pull the trailer just fine and we made all the hills. well, we didn't do any passing....everyone else was passing me. but we got there just fine. the grass was rather high so i cut it Friday morning as high as the mower would cut .... then cut again on Sunday before we left...and put the mower down 2 notches. so that should work for a week or 10 days. if there isn't a lot of rain it should be just fine. i am going down again next weekend and do some yard work. i have a couple trees by the fence to trim so i can mow easier and some vines and bushes to cut out. and will trim the edge of the curb by the street. probably a couple days of yard business. i have a list...hahahahahaha

In the evenings...we stayed at the Beast...i worked on some Dear Jane blocks. i even managed to stay awake till about 9pm instead of crashing about 8 as i usually do after working all day. i was hand stitching applique blocks. i finished:

C6

D3

The inside of E2. i finished the outside when i got back home.

The 2 'petals' of E10. i finished the 2 squares when i got home.

And the outside 'track' of G3...finished the inside at home.

And i finished a few more when i got home. doing the applique on the machine is much easier than by hand. and faster, too. i think i have 17 blocks done now. i have been skippping around...doing the easier ones....but now i think i feel confident enough and will go back to row 1 and finish them in order. then i can put rows together as they are finished and i think if i can see progress being made it will help me to finish them all quicker. at least that is the plan. LOL

Hope your long weekend was fun for you, too.