One Room Challenge Week 2 | Demo All The Things

Hi everyone! It’s One Room challenge Week 2. If you missed last week’s launch you can read all about the room we chose, see the before photos and see what my vision for our living room space is. WE made a ton of demo progress this week and yes, it always looks worse before it looks better. Just as a reminder here is one before photo and my moodboard for the space.

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Some fun orders and sponsored items for one room challenge have already started to arrive. Including the chandelier, the rug, this coffee table that I didn’t add to my moodboard and tools, my fave!! We’ve had the couches since late August because when we moved from West Virginia to Colorado we left our old sofa there. We needed a place to sit so I ordered these two sofas and I LOVE them. Can’t wait to see them in a finished room!

This week for ORC was all about demo. I absolutely love demo ACCEPT for the huge mess it creates. Plaster dust does not stay where you want it to, it flies everywhere even though the room was sealed off. I’ve done a lot of cleaning just to stay sane. We actually started demo before the launch of ORC just because there is so much to do and we have a city trash pickup coming up so we wanted that plaster + lathe out of here in time for that. Is that being cheap or smart? A reminder of the list from last week with a strike through the things we actually have accomplished.

Week 1:

remove drop ceiling
remove light fixture
remove mirrors
remove mantel and tile
demo plaster + lathe on ceiling and mirror wall
remove wallpaper

Removing the drop ceiling was very easy, but like I said above, DUSTY. Removing the rails that the drop ceiling rests on, however, was interesting. It felt like we were in a web of metal at some points but we got it all done in less than an hour along with removing the light fixture, mantel and tile which took maybe another hour. This phase of demo was pretty easy and set me up to think the rest was going to be soooo simple. Famous last words, right? Those mirrors were a beast to get down but Joel and my son, Landon, were awesome and VERY careful. We bought a tote to put all of the pieces in to dispose of. Made things much easier.

Then came the plaster and lathe on both the ceiling and the mirror wall (so glad we don’t have to call it that anymore!!). I underestimated how bad taking plaster and lathe down is. I mentioned it was dirty but I think that’s the understatement of the century. It literally covers every inch of your body as you pull it down and it’s disgusting! But again, we got it done! Here’s some photos of the demo process. (FYI the before pics are always gonna be gross and dark because that’s what this room IS in reality and these are taken with my phone bc my camera isn’t going anywhere near this mess lol!)

 

Surprise! We found where an old door way used to be that would lead to what is now the kitchen. We’ve contemplated over and over if we should make this space a dining room instead of a living room. That would mean closing off the door that is in the current dining room, knocking down the wall between them and creating a large cased opening into the kitchen. I have a couple issues with that plan though. 1. I already lack major wall space in my kitchen and it has 5, yes FIVE, doors in it. So I’m not sure how I’d feel about one of those doors getting turned into an even large door. 2. I just can’t wrap my head around it right now, ok? and 3. Even though that wall between the rooms isn’t load bearing, it makes me nervous moving it without having a licensed contractor tell me it’s okay to do. I’m a nervous nelly.

 

But the best part of the demo process was finding these AMAZING rough sawn 2×6 joists in the ceiling. I HOPED they would be there but we just weren’t sure until we started ripping the ceiling down. I did a majorly nerdy happy dance when I saw them peeking through! If we found them, the plan was to sheetrock in between each joists and leave the unfinished joists exposed in the room. I saw this idea in Old Home Love’s book and it’s just so freaking good! I love every page in it!! Now that we know they are there, we are going forward with a modified plan. We have these cross cross pieces which will make it pretty difficult to sheetrock in between each joists. The plan for now is to leave them as is, but possibly paint in between white so that it’s not so much wood. We will decide as the room starts to come together.

As you saw in the list above, there is no strikethrough on “remove wallpaper” and that’s because once I started on this wall, the plaster damage we found was pretty awful. There was a crack that went up the side of this arched opening and all the way across the top. Which made us realize the door was probably arched long after the house was built. Sooooo we did what any sane person would do, and tore the plaster and lathe down on this wall too. Then decided to remove the arch. It’s now a wonderfully square opening that we will case out. Just add it to the long and growing list of things we already have to do, right?

Having started back with demo I did not get to finish the wallpaper but there’s only a small portion left beside the radiator and up above the pocket door you can see in the above photo. The brown that you see on the original plaster is wallpaper, but it won’t come off with my scraper tool. The wallpaper has been the bane of my existence, so much so that I’d rather tear walls down that remove it, haha! The issue is that on top of the original plaster is about 3 layers of wallpaper. Then there’s a lovely newer layer of plaster then 2-3 more layers of wallpaper on top of that. That added plaster turns to goop when I try to use my steamer so I’ve had to hand scrape allll of it off. Then the brown layer you see in these pics with plaster peaking through, will get removed with water and come off easily. Which leads me to my list for One Room Challenge Week 3!

Remove Wallpaper
Skim Coat Plaster walls
Re-run electrical for ceiling fixture/light switch with the help of a Williamsburg electrician. I may also consider consulting W3 Electric for a reliable electrician in McKinney, TX, if I lived there.
Hang Drywall – Can’t wait to use this new Ryobi Brushless Drywall Screw Gun 
Mud + Sand Drywall
Sand Floor to prep for paint

More dirty, dusty work but I can deal with it for ONE MORE WEEK. Be sure to come back next week to see our progress! And don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest and Instagram! A big, gigantic shout out to my one room challenge sponsors for making this room makeover possible!

 

Don’t forget you can see ALL of the other participants’ room progress by clicking the ORC image below!