At the end of 2019, we were able to start demolition on my 1920s house renovation right away. By we, I mean a friend, an uncle and one of my cousins. They did the heavy lifting, literally. The kitchen and a shower room were completely gutted. Removing the shower room tile from the floor and walls was a beast though. The jackhammer required to remove it was a beast. The wall tile was set in about two inches of mortar on a wire mesh. Turns out, however, removing all of that tile was the right thing to do because the floor was completely rotted. We would later find out that the water damage extended into the rooms situated around the shower room, including the hallway, kitchen, dining room and a bedroom.

However, this initial demolition revealed more than just water damage. We found evidence of previous renovations such as doorways plastered over, upgraded wiring tapped into the knob-and-tube fuse box, and layers of vinyl flooring, some of which contained asbestos.

Rolling into 2020, winter had set in and work on the house had come to a halt. When spring arrived, so did COVID-19 and a back injury (mine). So I decided to focus on what I could do before I had seriously needed back surgery, like stripping paint, until my heat gun gave up on me. I wanted to have a fence installed around the property, but getting a surveyor during a pandemic proved impossible. Some were not working because of COVID-19 and others were backed up with work. Of course, I should have had a survey done during closing when I purchased the house, but that’s neither here nor there.

One thing did go right in the fall of 2020; the two pecan trees on the property produced bags and bags of pecans.

So far in 2021, year two of the renovation process, I reluctantly hired a contractor to finish the demolition; walls and ceilings down to the studs, vinyl and laminate flooring removed, and a non-functioning chimney in the kitchen taken down. An asbestos removal company took care of the remaining vinyl flooring that tested positive for asbestos. Except for a few broken windows, the demolition went well. Nothing I wanted to save went into the dumpster, including the bricks from the kitchen chimney.

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