Sledgehammer Biopsy. (This may sting a little)

The day after we signed the mortgage and picked up the keys it was time to start exploring our new kingdom.  I walked around the place and randomly broke holes in walls to see just what was hiding in the 80 year old nooks and crannies.

Suspended ceilings hide frightening things.  Like this giant metallic and plastic octopus.

Creepy bathrooms are creepier with holes bashed through them.

It was bad.  Not horrific, but bad enough that the amount of work ahead of us became a little frightening.  We knew if was going to be a total demo back to the support walls, with all electrical, plumbing, heating, phones, etc being stripped back to the sources, but we had no clue the place is built like a battle ship in certain spots.  Multiple layers of sheet rock and steel studs, glued and screwed to the old plaster, which in some places was put over nearly inch thick tongue and groove wood siding.  They don't build em like that anymore...

The old office was build frighteningly well.  Just this tiny amount of demo took 3 hours.

The false ceiling in the large open area was the first thing to be seriously attacked.  We threw a ladder up the to side wall and began tearing down the ancient fiberboard(no, not asbestos) to get a peek at the condition of the barrel vault.  It was tremendously exciting to finally poke our heads up above the old iron trusses and see the scope of the roof scape.

Very first picture of the barrel vault.  There is still dust in the air.

                                                                  It was tremendous!

The following week we had a licensed electrician in to kill all the power in the building expect for one outlet right next to the main power panel so we knew we could strip 80 years of accreted wiring and patches.  Best to start fresh.  We also turned off the gas supplies(2 meters) and locked them off to make sure that we could remove all the old gas piping for replacement.  The water we left on.  Accidentally cutting a water line is annoying, and frequently amusing, and shutting off the one usable bathroom is NOT an option.

Once the dumpster arrived, courtesy of our good friends at Captain Hook.  We like those guys a lot.  Small, local company and the name rocks!

We began in earnest to get the ceiling torn down and all the old electrical stripped off the walls.  Marks father, Ray came in to lend a hand for the demolition portion of the project, mainly because Barb wants him out of the house.  Mark worked on the ceilings off the ladder, Ray worked on the electrical and plumbing removal.

First of 10 piles of wiring, plumbing and HVAC metal we removed.

After a few days we could start to see the span of the barrel vault.  It is everything we had hoped for.

 On the down side of our project planning, it became clear that the leaks in the smaller portion of the building were bad enough to justify a complete tear off and replacement.  Luckily we end up with a superior roof with all of the old penetrations removed and sealed over with a high tech membrane roofing system that will guarantee us a lifetime of security.

Luckily we have used a local company for roofing in the past.  Buck Roofing came out to inspect the project and gave us a quite reasonable bid that we accepted almost immediately. Normally multiple bids are advisable, but we knew what the price range should have been for the bid and when they came in slightly under budget, it was time to sign a contract.  The roof project is set to begin sometime in early November.

The first slow parts of demolition was a blast, we cannot wait to get deeper into the project!