Demo Day is not for Sissies!

We have been busy out at The Range! 

I knew before we even started the demo that I wanted the Master Bedroom to be my special retreat spot. 

The floor plan of the house was all chopped up so I quickly rearranged all of the rooms including the staircase. 

That will be in another post..

The old dining room seemed like the perfect place for the Master Bedroom.

 All we had to do was pull up the carpet, take the 1970's paneling down

 (which was partially covered in 1980's wallpaper...)

and then add our own touch. 

Sounded so easy!

I should know anytime you remodel a house that you can always 

expect the unexpected.

After all, this is not my first rodeo... I have lost count on the number of houses Mr. Ella and I have worked on. 

The very first house we bought,way back when, had ship lap under the old wallpaper.

 I remember burning the strings off the nails even in a tiny closet!

This is what " Just taking the paneling down" led to. 

Yikes. 

Not for the faint of heart. Vision is the key word here,

 BIG VISION...

And yes, that is a water heater tucked up above the built in cabinet - go figure.

The wood used on this area of the walls and floors indicated that the house was much older than 1912. 

We are guessing it started out small and as the family grew and the money came in 

(good crops) the other rooms were added.

If these walls could only talk.

The first day of demo, I showed up at the house to this mess. 

The workers were supposed to only take up the sub floor, but did not understand that and just started cutting up the whole floor, many in 2 foot pieces. I was not a happy camper, but the damage was already done. It really ended up being a blessing because as you can see what was under that wonderful floor was awful and smelly.

So, I decided to make lemonade from lemons and picked the grey wood out. The linoleum brick pattern was what was on top of the other flooring and in the kitchen. Again- go figure!

We had just enough to make this wall. 

You can see where I started cleaning and sanding it... 

Not too bad!

All of the old wood we are using throughout the house was already there somewhere hiding under many layers of time. 

Not all of them are that easy to get to though!