Demo Continues

Good Monday Morning.

The demolition continued throughout the weekend and I'm quite proud of our progress. Penny and I got most of the paneling throughout the house down and out. We also got the dining room and foyer carpeting out. Penny pulled up the flooring in the vestibule to reveal rotted/termite damaged floor boards. With some help from my friend Jamie, I got all the wall paper down in the dining room, all four layers of it. I still need to wash off the glue, but overall, the plaster in that room is in very good condition.

Some discoveries we have made:

1. Found the original kitchen doorway.
2. Discovered the reason why the previous owner would not allow us to do an invasive inspection in the foyer/vestibule. There's no plaster left in that wall at all. It also looks like a combination of water and termite damage. Some of the vertical beams will have to be replaced. But the good news is that the horizontal beam seems to be quite sound.
3. Despite the torrential rain last night, no leaks have been found in the house this morning.
4. Other than the vestibule, the floors seems to be in pretty good condition. We just have thousands of staples to pull.
5. Moldings in the foyer are plaster, as are the corbels under the arch. Neato!

Vestibule Demo


Vestibule floor


Dining Room Sans Wallpaper


Original Kitchen Doorway


Hot and Sweaty Penny


Hardwood Floors

Progress in the first week

This week we've just spent trying to clean, get organized and figure out what comes first. We did get some of the windows open. I got some paneling down, and started taking off wall paper in the dining room. There were four layers of wall paper in the living room. Given this house is 90 years old, I didn't think that was too bad. Here are pics of the progress so far.

The front bedroom (The Green Room) - I started taking off the paneling to reveal pepto bismo pink paint over lilac wallpaper.




The living room


Removing wallpaper in the dining room


After one afternoon


Uncovering history, it reads: H.A. Pollard, June 25, 1945. Pollard is a common name in Richmond.

The Before Pictures

Here are a few of the "before" pictures. Most of these were taken during our initial walk through of the house. The house is currently listed as a four bedroom, 2.5 bath house that has roughly 1800 square feet. The reality as you will see is that the fourth bedroom is mostly a closet and there isn't room for a crib, let alone a bed. The "half bath" we discovered was actually a "maid's bath" that can only be accessed from outside. It's not even a real "bathroom" as it only has a commode and no sink. Very scary place. I will get some pics tomorrow and post those for you as well.

On to the pics!

The Golden Living Room


The Golden Dining Room



The Golden Kitchen


The Sun Porch


The Golden Stairwell


The Golden Hallway


The Front Bedroom aka "the green room"


The Back Bedroom(?) - apparently they turned a tiny bedroom into a cedar closet. Note the groovy red vinyl flooring.


Another Back Bedroom


The Blue Room


The Golden Bath