Demolition, Part III
2006.03.11
Last weekend I did a small amount of demolition. I pulled down the rest of the drywall and wood siding separating the corner closet from the back room. Then I did the same on the west wall of the corner closet. I had expected to find nothing more than furring strips between the wood and the concrete wall, but in fact it was fully framed out, with more insulation.
Today I continued demolition on the west wall. Now that I had all the moldy drywall removed, I didn’t have to be quite so careful, and deal with extra steps like spraying the pieces with bleach and wrapping them in plastic to contain the mold spores. So things went a lot faster. I pulled all the drywall off the west wall, exposing all that gaudy knotty pine paneling. Now, if you’re one of those people that likes knotty pine, well… you have no taste. In a rustic mountainside cabin, sure. In a house in the city… no.
After the drywall was all down, I began pulling down the paneling, starting on the closet side. That went slower than the gypsum board, since I had to pry two or three nailing points for each board. I got about halfway down the wall, including the wood post.
So, next step is to continue removing paneling. I can’t decide if I will also take down the framing, or just leave that in place in anticipation of putting up new drywall sometime in the future. I’ll probably remove the insulation, at least enough to get a look at the concrete wall and floor where I think the water was coming in. And then there’s the process of taking all the debris out and cleaning up. Can’t wait.
Demo, Part II