Tina & Rob's Renos (3): Tear Down the Wall!

One of the most important concepts to grasp in order to make your reno go smoothly is to know who you work well with and to avoid at all costs working with someone who drives you crazy or doesn't want to be there. I’m of the mindset that when you’re helping someone else out, you do the tasks they ask you to do and do them even more carefully than your own projects (and you shall be rewarded with pizza and beer) and you should thus expect the same when the tables are turned. And never, ever volunteer to help someone unless you actually want to do it.

Yet even the most enthusiastic and positive of helpers can cause friction if your working styles don’t match. Despite how much we argue, Rob and I actually work really well together. Generally Rob assigns me tasks and I do them on my own. And he knows I tend to be not exactly “rammy” but I like repetitive tasks that don’t require finesse. I like drilling holes, tearing stuff down, using the saw, learning how to do something like wire an outlet and then wire like 15 of them for the next two hours, or painting (I love painting). And Rob has the expertise and patience to work on things that require particulars like making sure walls are level and all that.
There is one other person I love to work with: Rob’s dad. Mainly because he is just like Rob and trusts that I will do the tasks assigned to me properly.  On the flipside there are a couple people I will never work with again (likely not reading this blog, so it’s not a friend or you, gentle reader) because they a) won’t listen to my opinions (often because I’m a girl, apparently – which infuriates me), b) does things so quickly they are done improperly and c) won’t stop to catch a breath.  There are times for expediency, definitely, but no one likes working under the gun for no reason.

Short version: Choose wisely who you work with!

The person I like working the most with (surprise, surprise) is the lovely Tina Beier, so I took Thursday off last week in order to tear down the walls in the basement to get this party started!

Here was my list (written on the wall)!

 And here is Rob’s list.

Here is what it looked like before I got started:

So, if you’re going to DEMO a wall, you need to:

a) Be aware where outlets are so you don't cut/ding any wires (if you're particularly paranoid you could turn off the power) 

b) Be prepared for dust, dust and more dust

c) Have some water on hand to drink 

d) Have some music playing (Thursday's choice:  Songza - Alt rock from 90s - now)

e) Have the right tools!

It’s almost demoing time so I better get sharp! I check the list:

Hammer. Drill. Knife. Glasses. Mask. Old Yellow.

AND MY MITTS!

(I was totally referencing Sin City there, by the way, which is why the photo is in black and white… oh never mind)

Anyway, this is all I really needed to get the job done.Yes, my mitts are old winter gloves, but I find regular workgloves a little expensive and cumbersome. Maybe Santa will bring me a nice pair of gloves? 

First I took down the remnants of the drop ceiling. That took all of five minutes so I’m not going to extrapolate.

Then I removed a redundant piece of wood from the door frame. Also not very exciting.

Then the good stuff.

Walls generally have what’s called Corner Bead where two walls meet. This is a good place to start. If you’re lucky they’ve screwed it in (actually, if you’re really lucky they were lazy and didn’t do anything to secure it) and if you’re unlucky they used nails. To expose the corner bead I got Ruger to bite the wall…. Oh wait, he did that of his own accord upstairs where we weren’t renovating! In truth, I used a hammer to lightly whack all the paint/mudding off to expose the bead:

Then I undid the screws and pulled it off!

The way Rob advised to remove drywall is to get a handhold in the wall and pull gently until the entire piece pops off in a nice clean sheet. All I can say is: HA. HAHAHA. Yeah, right. Maybe that works for him but I took a more messy route. But I tried his method and by the end of the day I was able to get some pieces off as one chunk.
But I’m jumping ahead!  To get a hold of this piece I used the hammer to make my own hand holds:

Then I used Old Yellow and Brute Force (the approach of kings and king of approaches) to remove the wall. The rest of the walls weren’t as bad – I could push through the studs to get to the other pieces a lot of the time. The most annoying parts were the small bulkheads in the bathroom and the ceiling.

I got mighty dusty!

I found some weird stuff in the walls too. Here’s one example:

When my part was done the basement looked like this:

                                                         Yay!

 And I had this mess to drag up to the garage. Not so Yay.

Then on Saturday we tackled the basement together (Music? I was too lazy to get my computer so we listened to Wolfmother, Journey, and CCR that were on the PS3 hard-drive).  Our plan was to work on it for 2 hours or so until 12ish, go to the dump, grab lunch, go to Lowe’s and then take the dog to the dog park. We ended up working on the basement until 1:30 by accident, quickly loaded the truck, went to the dump (so romantic!), and “popped in” to Lowe’s. Yeah, two hours later we rushed home, gave the poor dog a shitty walk, and then rushed out to meet our friends for sushi. Tip? Don’t ever expect to get something done “in an hour” or on a set timeline.

What we did on Saturday:

Rob’s time-saving plan was to simply move the old wall from the furnace room forward so it was the new wall for the storage room. He used the Sawzall to remove nails/screws from the bottom, moved some wiring, and did some other fiddly things while I got my hammer and old Yellow out again and removed drywall from the other side of the wall, finished the floor in there, and got rid of some bulkheads.

To move the wall we had to lay it flat on the ground so we could put vapour barrier on the bottom that rests against the cement – this is simply a way to protect the wood from moisture.

Then we pushed it into place!  The lower right corner is where it used to sit.  Then we left for the day. :)

On Sunday I had to work on my decorating project for school:

                                                                     Ooh so pretty!

So Rob secured the wall without my help (it looks pretty much the same).

Next on the agenda (hopefully this weekend!) is to confer with Rob’s dad what is to be done about the plumbing and hopefully get Old Bluey and the sink out of the room! And take down more drywall on the outer walls to see why some of the bottom wood frame appears damp.

Aw, Ruger is all tired out from ALL the work he didn't do :P

Thanks for reading!

Tips

-         -   Work with those you work well with

-          - Never presume it’ll take you “only an hour”; you’ll hit snags

-          - Always have a utility knife; I used it so much for cutting the mesh of the drywall, scoring edges between ceiling and wall, slicing the hem of my pants when I tripped on it…

-        -   Get a tool belt! 

SO hot , I know.