![]() I really appreciate a crew that maintains a tidy workspace - for themselves and for us living in the house. As the pull everything down, they take time to sort the plaster into the dump pile and drive the trash away, they make a pile of lath of me to salvage, and they keep the job site quite clean. It takes a while to remove all of the plaster and lath. The guys kept making their way around the room and started removing the cabinetry, too. Maybe a lath house in the garden? Maybe a surround for my A/C unit? Maybe a little house for cats? Who knows! Until I decide, I’ll just have a pile of wood in the backyard. I’ve always been in love with this lath house at a 1905 house in San Diego (where we also happened to get married) and want to build something similar. Our house wasn’t one of those, so we had the privilege of not having to worry about that.Īs I saw them removing the wood lath (the thin strips of wood that make up the walls), I got the idea to save it so I can build something out of it. That’s a material that is more often added in the 1940s so you don’t see it in 100-year-old houses unless there was a latter renovation or wall re-coating. I got asked about asbestos abatement but our walls didn’t have asbestos. It’s safe to assume any house that had any work done to it before 1980 has lead in it, so we always practice safe lead practices. The crew has been bagging all of the plaster to keep lead contained. ![]() The team also salvaged some of the woodwork that I didn’t have time to pull off - thanks, guys, I’ll be sure to put it to good use again! In addition to taking down the walls, they started to strip the plaster and lath off of the perimeter walls. They left the framing but removed the lath and plaster to give us an idea of how big the room feels without the division. The guys kicked off demo by pulling down the two walls that were dividing our kitchen into three rooms, and it really opened up the area. The video is formatted vertically, so it’s best watched on your phone - but it works on your computer, too! I’ve been sharing videos of the progress on Instagram Stories, but not all of you follow me there, so I put the Instagram clips into a 15-minute YouTube video so you can see the whole evolution and get a good sense of the layout, too. This isn’t just a quick remodel! Watch a video of the week’s Demo!: In addition, we’re replacing all of the plumbing with new stuff so they’re tearing out the big, heavy, cast iron, and they’re ripping out the old electrical. ![]() Imagine if I did that all by myself - it would have taken me months. ![]() The team of 3-5 guys has spent days pulling all of the walls down. This isn’t something you can just kick your foot through and pry off with your hands in a couple of minutes. It’s hard, heavy, solid plaster - much like concrete, and then thousands of strips of wood nailed to the studs. Our kitchen is made up of the original plaster and lath construction. You may have seen TV clips of a contractor kicking their foot through the wall, or a couple taking a swing at a cabinet and taking the whole thing down in a second. It’s worth noting that the demolition in our kitchen has been much more involved than what we may often see on HGTV. We ultimately hired a crew to demolish the space and we’re so glad to have a skilled, strong, and dedicated team to do the work. I really thought that I could do it! But boy am I glad I didn’t try to do it on my own. There was a time when I thought I would do all of the demolition myself. ![]()
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