This weekend was the first time Siri and I really got some time to work on the house.  We spent Saturday morning taking down the drop ceilings and removing the partition walls on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

The original 7″ x 3″ joists look great.  There was some remaining lath and plaster above the 2nd floor.  Amazing how that piled up.  Taking down the whole kitchen ceiling and wall is going to be quite a load!

Piles of plaster after taking down what remained of the lathes and plaster above the drop ceiling.

After showers we headed off to The Home Depot for the 1st time.

Lets see if we still have smiles on our faces by the end of this project.

Sunday was spent getting more of the dirty work done.  We started with tidying up the basement removing anything that we didnt need an electrician, plumber or gas fitter for.  There was a surprising lot we got done.  There were lots of clothes lines, rotting shelves, cable lines, phone lines…  we even found a 6′ aluminum ladder.  We also tore out the duct work.  They were run incorrectly with the exhaust pipe running through the chimney, which was used as an air duct and had to go.  We’re doing radiant floor heating with a single water heater and will not need the ducting nor the chimney.

We then moved onto removing the masonite and plaster on the 2nd to 3rd floor stairway.  What a transformation:

Ugly!

This wall will involve a lot of pointing one day, but first it needs some bricks repaired at the top before we do the roof.

After two days of work, we’ve got the living room stacked with laths, ceiling tiles, drywall, and 10 giant trash bags full of insulation to haul to the dump.  Still working out how to get this stuff to the dump, but it needs to be done before we move on to the next step: demolition on the 1st floor ceiling.