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!