Big Weekend - Work, Work, and More Work

Well, we had a busy weekend.

Saturday Andy and I put down tile on the kitchen floor. I can't describe how happy this makes me. We have been living with dirty painted plywood for almost a year now and the thought of a clean, nice floor is almost too good to be true.

It looks very nice and we are doing a good job. The floor slopes a little bit and we can tell, but probably no one but us will notice. We have just done the middle of the big open part of the kitchen. We still have to put a border around it and tile the cooking part of the kitchen. But I am so happy just to be making progress.

Today (Sunday) we started demolition on the new house on Chicamauga. What a job!! I will be incredibly painfully sore tomorrow. But we got a lot done. The right side had horrible paneling everywhere, so we took that out and found unsalvageable plaster underneath it. We removed the plaster too, a dirty, dusty job, and left the lathe. We will drywall over this.

We removed the ceiling in the front room, and then in addition to plaster dust, we were covered with coal dust coming from the attic. We were VERY dirty. See photos below.

We also knocked out a couple of walls in the central hallway. This house was originally built in 1899 as a single family bungalow with a large central hallway and rooms off either side. At some point it was converted to a duplex, left and right, and they used the central hallway for closets. Now we are getting back to the original floor plan.

But the best part was the fireplaces!! We uncovered two of the four and found the most beautiful tiles. The front room has green tiles with a man and a woman on the sides, and the dining room has a blue tiles with a lion on top and peacocks on the sides. They are very fancy, much nicer than the ones you usually find.

We were glad to see a house for sale today about a block down from the one we are fixing up, listed for $238,900. We were thinking we could get around $150,000 for our renovation when it's done. But if the house down the street sells even as low as $200,000, it will be very good news for us. Looks promising. Andy's last day at work will be this coming Wednesday, and then he will be full time in the house-flipping business. Wish us luck.

Love to all,
Becky

me by the fire writing Christmas cards

andy working on the floor

after the first day's work on the floor

our floor in its current state - good progress but lots more to do

here i am first thing in the morning at the new house - shiny clean and brimming with enthusiasm

perhaps not my MOST attractive moment - it got much worse after this

apparently these people liked to break into newspaper kiosks and steal the change

andy removing paneling

some lovely moldy food for us to clean up

this is the original state of the rooms on the right side - the spots are dust

this is the icky plaster we found under the paneling

after removing the plaster - we will put drywall over this lathe

all the plaster has been removed in this room - big mess

living room fireplace - they had this covered with that cheap paneling

lion - center tile over the dining room fireplace

peacocks on the side of the dining room fireplace

now we can see down the central hallway

a few hours ago the hall was blocked

another lovely photo

Andy looks pretty scary too

andy's friend bobby on the left got the worst of it