In the Belly of the Beast

After some serious thought (and almost pulling down a potentially load bearing wall) we decided to pull out all of the ceiling. We had previously decided not to, in hopes of using the original ceiling and saving ourselves the time and effort. But, in the end we're glad we chose to pull it down. Seeing now what was up there, I wouldn't have felt comfortable moving my kids into that house. Now, it's just a big empty shell of a house. Studs only with a view straight to the roof. It's actually kind of amazing to walk into a house and be able to see it's bones. Somehow it seems like you're standing in the ribcage of some prehistorical beast.

Let me warn the faint of heart...NEVER EVER DO THIS YOURSELF. Unless you just love pain and misery and nasty nasty things. Now that it's done, I am very proud of us for what we've accomplished. But I realized yesterday (when we weren't even halfway done) that I would much rather relive the pain of childbirth than to spend another day shoveling out old insulation and dry wall. Plus there were the snake skins, the multitude of dead rats and mice...and so much more.
Here is the house after Jon pulled all the ceiling out (doesn't he look cute in his Tyvek suit and my hot pink hard hat?).


And the end of the day after we picked it up...

We wondered if we ordered too big of a dumpster...apparently not. We filled that sucker completely full. See how big it is compared to the truck? We did that...every piece of wood, dry wall, insulation, flooring, appliances, etc...we tore it out and dumped it in there. Talk about sweat equity...I've never sweat so much in my life. (though I think technically so far it's all sweat and no equity...)


Now it's time to take a little break. I promised the kids no work at the house for a few weekends yet...it's time to make up for some lost family time that I have been sorely missing.