Sunday, May 11, 2008

OC Condo Demolition

OC Condo Photos

Good times performing destruction. But behind every wall there's a new discovery. Mold everywhere causes scope creep. So what started out as replacement of fixtures and floors in the Kitchen and BAs turned into an almost complete renovation of both BAs and, Kitchen, Halls and Utility Room.

What have I gotten myself into?

Mold pretty behind most of the cabinets in the kitchen. But the worst was actually in the wall across the hall (not shown). Ended up replacing everything in the kitchen, cabinets, appliances, walls and even put up a drywall ceiling with recessed lights.

I don't think there were any building codes back in the 70s when this place was built. We completely gutted both BAs, which are back to back so you can see both in the photo on the left.
Had to supplement all the framing on these interior walls. A decent challenge since the original stuff was non-standard construction and had to reroute a lot of the wiring and upgrade some plumbing.
Oh, and see those two tubs in the photo on the left, they had to go. But the challenge was that they were both Wrought Iron which requires basing the crap out of them with a 12 lb. sledge spitting shards of porcelain into the air and finally breaking into big chunks. I broke a brand new sledge hammer about 6 swings into demolishing the 2nd tub. It was fun explaining to Home Depot that their product was defective based on what i was trying to accomplish...

All dressed up and a little victory cheer for Mark. And Natalie seems to be a bit leery of the ceiling falling on her head.
Lisa and Natalie gave the tile scraper a go. Thank goodness because at this point of i was about dead and we only had about 5 feet of hallway and the utility room to go.
At this point the place is about 80% gutted. I had to remove do a bit more destruction here and there to make rebuild a bit easier.


And this is just load number one for the dump. Mostly appliances and cabinets. Picture this 10 foot trailer being hauled by my Jeep Wrangler all the way back to Rockville. (I'd looked into using the local OC dump but it was going to require permits and administrative headaches plus $ per ton. Not to mention they would only accept about 2/3rds of the trash. Just easier to take it back to the Shady Grove Transfer Station Rockville.



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