Plaster whack to the head = swollen eye and a bloody gash on my eyebrow. Hammer to the forehead = swelling to the forehead along with more blood. Brilliant idea of climbing into large trash bin to compress trash more = trash gave way like a sink hole and trapped my right ankle which resulted in a little ankle swelling. Metal grates in wall holding plaster = looks like I got in a fight with a cat and the cat won. Coming into work the next week and getting strange stares like I went on vacation to learn how to cage fight = priceless.
The past week we embarked on the biggest project yet, demolition in the kitchen. By far, the kitchen needs the most work. After having absolutely no luck finding a contractor to come in and do the entire job I said what I always say, “No problem, I can do it better myself!” Well, I’m happy to report, it is done. I’m also happy to report it costs $0 out of our pocket and I only had to use 2 tools the entire week. As the paragraph above mentions though, it gave me a whooping! Sure, the concept is easy, hit the wall a few times, plaster falls, DONE. Right.
We called a dumpster company and had a large dumpster delivered, say about 12 feet long and about 7 feet high. Once it arrived, I went to work in the kitchen. Removed all cabinets which I thought would take 30 minutes ended up taking 2 hours. Carefully removed all molding around doors and removed all electrical outlets. I followed my standard approach; prep work first will make the rest of the job easy. True, it was important, but it certainly didn’t make things easier in this case!
The cabinets were a paint to get out .. strange mount brackets that kept the cabinets mounted even when I removed all screws, etc. Since I wanted to use the cabinets in my workshop I had to keep them in one piece.
IMPORTANT: Go buy a heavy duty mask before you start. The dust and debris is impossible for me to explain. I bought this heavy duty respirator mask for about $30 at Lowes:
Notice the fog? My glasses under the goggles didn’t help so I used this anti-fog stuff I use for my paintball mask, which helped a little.
To get the plaster down you basically hit it, it cracks and falls, and you have the task of pulling lathe board out and it is mounted like a solid wooden wall with lathe board spanning each stud from floor to ceiling and on top of the ceiling.
A tip for anyone getting ready to do this is not to just hammer away and break it. After about 50% of the kitchen was done I realized all the nails would have to come out from me getting carried away and just breaking the lathe board, leaving nails in place. As you can imagine, I took a much slower approach prying the lathe board out, along with the nails. Since drywall was going to go up on the subs the nails had to come out.
Once I got about 4 feet down on the walls I hit a MAJOR obstacle. Metal in the walls?
The picture above shows what I am talking about. Think of really sharp and heavy chicken wire. This stuff was installed to give the walls a subway like tile finish, using plaster. It really slowed me down. Huge nails held it up and it was so sharp it would rip right through your jeans.
As I continued the demo the dust started to become a big problem, making things harder to see. I also started to get really hot from the mask so I think I started to get a little more aggressive on the wall. As a result, a large piece of plaster came off (sometimes the junks fall in 10 – 12 inch lengths) from the ceiling and cracked me hard. This stuff is thick and heavy, it almost looked like concrete. The result of the hit to my face was a swollen eye and a bloody gash.
After about 3.5 days I had the plaster all down and all cleaned up. Believe it or not, the large trash bin was nearly full! A tip for anyone that is going to embark on this is to have the trash bin delivered near a window so you can shovel the debris out and into it. This saved me a great deal of time.
Next, we wanted to get the plumbing fixed because some of it was leaking.
We also needed a gas line ran for the range
Last, we had new electical outlets installed and old 2 prong outlets upgraded.
You will notice a new outlet here and Amber pulling nails out!
Once all this was done we had to go over everything and slowly pull nails out. I will tell you, it’s a long process and nails were everywhere.
And finally the insulation could go in. It cost about $80 for the entire kitchen. R13 in the walls and R19 in the ceiling.
Never compress the insulation when you install it or it will be useless. I also used a staple gun to staple the interior lip inside the stud to hold it nice and tight.
At the end of the project I am happy it is done. I will also say I am not looking forward to ever doing demo again. All and all, the savings was about $3,000, so I do think it made it worth it.