Open concept

The wall is finally down! Daniel and James were able to cut and remove the frame posts for the wall without much resistance.  The house feels so much bigger without the wall dividing the living space.  James was able to tuck all the wires through the ceiling into the small attic over the hall, so everything is prepped for when they rewire the kitchen and close up the ceiling.

(Sorry for the sideways video, but you get the idea)

Sue and I ripped up all the pink carpet in the entire house and scraped up the linoleum in the kitchen.  It was tough work, but it was rewarding to see big changes happening.  The original 1957 terrazzo floors were revealed and ready for polishing in the near future.  We left the carpet tack strips in place so that the terrazzo restorer could properly cut them and polish them into the terrazzo so as not to damage them more than they need to be.  There's lots of wear and tear, but we're hoping they'll be salvageable.

Scraping up linoleum is hard work!

The original terrazzo floor throughout the house.

It was time to head back to New Jersey and wait for the next opportunity to work on our little project.  We couldn't have done it without James and Sue!  I'm sure we'll be saying that about a lot of people by the time this project is complete.

Living room to kitchen where the wall was removed.

Kitchen to dining room.

The floor where the wall was removed.

Kitchen to living room and front door.

Dining room to kitchen.

One of the bedrooms where the parquet was removed.

We also confirmed that Florida is very sunny.

The wall continues to fall

More demolition!  The parquet was completely removed and the wall continued to come down quickly.  It was an original plaster wall, so the metal netting had to be cut through around the edges.  Luckily, the frame posts were just floating in the ceiling, so there are a couple feet of clearance in the ceiling above where the wall stood.  All of the electrical can be rewired without having to add a bulkhead between the kitchen and living room, which makes me very happy!

We removed the old kitchen cabinets while working on the wall in order to have more space during demolition.  They were pretty old and damaged, but we were able to save the upper cabinets to use in the garage for now.  The previous owner had redone the plumbing inside the lower cabinets, so those water pipes will have to be moved into the wall before we put the new kitchen in.  The sink will also be moved under the window, so more plumbing work for Daniel and James!

Demolition!

Reinforcements arrived on May 5th!  Daniel's parents drove down from Pensacola with a full truckload of tools, including a giant sledge hammer with my name on it.  As an avid fan of HGTV, all I wanted to do was rip down a wall, and this was my opportunity!  The kitchen and living room shall become one!

We spent the next few days working very hard to make a big impact on the house.  Daniel and his dad, James, spent a lot of time rewiring most of the outlets in the house and relabeling the breakers.  Eventually they will rewire and add outlets to the kitchen and split some of the existing outlets to different breakers.  Half of the house seems to be on the "bathroom" breaker, so that will have to change.

While the boys worked on the electricity, Dan's mom, Sue, and I got to work on pulling up the old parquet that was under the carpet in the bedrooms.  We were hoping that it might be salvageable until we could address the floor down the road, but no such luck.  The parquet was probably installed in the 60s, so it was barely holding on in places.  Wood chunks and sparks were flying most of the day.  We rewarded ourselves with a little Cinco de Mayo celebration and margaritas!

James and Sue's dog, Zacchaeus, the trusty helper.

By the next morning, I was ready to take the first swing at that wall.  It was an original wall to the house, but it closed off the space, wasn't load bearing, and really wasn't necessary.  Hello, sledgehammer!  Goodbye, wall!