Day 1 - The Beginning

Yesterday was the day... Time to start! The first thing I did was take apart and get rid of the beds in both bedrooms. Next, something simple, I decided to tackle the stars on Amon's ceiling. For some reason, my kids have have found the need to decorate their bedroom ceilings... I'm not sure which one of them stuck the little luminescent stars up where, but both Amon's room and Esther's had them. I started by knocking down all the stars in Amon's room. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom to read the first post which shows my floor plans and talks about the overall scheme of things.)

When I say "Amon's room" I only mean that he was the last occupant. Each of the bedrooms in our house has been occupied by various kids over the years. When we first built the house, "Amon's room" was Rebekah and Rachel's room. Then Rebekah moved out and it was Rachel's room. It's also been "the boys room", then Nathan's room. Others may have claimed it over the years, it's hard to remember!

Here's Esther's ceiling. I think Naomi was responsible for these stars. The blue ones are stenciled on, the white ones are stuck on and glow in the dark. I won't be working in that room right away since Esther still has a lot of things in there. My attention for now is on Amon's room.

After knocking down the stars, I decided to get serious... it was time to be really committed to the project so I tried to punch a hole in the wall that I was going to remove between Amon's room and the hallway. When I hit the wall with my fist it HURT! I couldn't imagine how the boys have managed to put holes in the wall by hitting it... (it occasional fits of anger)... Putting a hole in the wall is not easy and I gained a little bit of perverse respect for anyone who could do it.

I decided to pound my "starter hole" with a hammer. I took a couple swings and managed to get it opened up enough to pull out the first section of drywall which also pulled away some of the wallpaper. The hole doesn't go all the way through to the hallway at this point, only the side in Amon's room.

I wonder how long I will call it "Amon's room".. ??? Probably forever. I still call the main bathroom the "kids' bathroom and no kids even live here now. AND I still call that room behind the kitchen the "kids computer room." Some things may never change.

That's part of one of the beds that you can see through the door into the hall. I got rid of it before I went much further. I decided that hammering the wall was fun... and decided to make a bunch more (hammer) holes.

I used the hammer holes to weaken the drywall so I could pull it off in chunks. I put the big chunks in containers to haul off. I wasn't too worried about the little chunks on the carpet. Eventually I'd just cut the carpet out, roll it up and haul it off too!

I've got almost all the drywall off this side of the wall! Some was sticking under the door frame, so I'd have to remove it to finish.

When I got this far I found some interesting items that had been INSIDE the wall. There was a checker, a nice round rock about 3 inches across, a little toy (Fisher Price) milk bottle, and a little green matchbox race car. I guess one or the other of the kids (probably one of the boys) had shoved them through one of the holes that had been kicked (and since then, repaired) in the wall. When Amon stopped in he said..."Oh, there's my car! I was looking for that a long time ago!"
Now, for the other side of the wall... here you can see through to the hallway.
Taken from the hallway looking towards the kitchen. Nice looking studs, huh?

All done for the day, looking into Amon's room from the hallway. You can see the expertly removed door trim against the wall. I took it off Amon's door, both sides as well as Esther's from the hall side.

And here is the view from Amon's room looking into the hall. Notice how I even cleaned up most of the plaster mess off the carpet? I decided I didn't want to track it around in the rest of the house. I'd say that's a pretty good afternoon's work.
I'm not sure what the next phase will be. All I know for sure I can do is remove Amon's door from the hinges and maybe take out the rest of the door frame (not just the trim like I already did). I can't start taking down 2x4's until Jay does something with those electric wires. He'll have to move the light switch and outlet, but the wires also go on into Esther's room. That part is beyond my expertise so progress from here may be at his whim and mercy. I don't really want to start removing the wall between the two rooms until Esther moves her stuff out in a couple weeks.

If I get antsy I might start ripping up carpet, but I have mixed feelings about that, it seems to be a good catch all for plaster dust and such.. might be easier to take it up later than clean that stuff off the concrete floor under the carpet. BUT ...

I might not be able to help myself. I guess I could start ripping down the wallpaper. Maybe that will be next. Eventually the walls will be refinished with "knock down"... bumpy plaster finish to hide all the years of hole repair and other flaws. Those walls will never be smooth enough to just paint and I'm tired of wallpaper.