Demolicious

Yes. That’s a word. I totally made it up and it does, in fact, make it even harder to take myself seriously. But then again, so did the entire process of demoing the master bath, which started Wednesday morning with me sleeping through my alarm.

Actually, I woke up to my alarm, shut it off, and then promptly fell back into a nightmare wherein a demo crew came into my house, accidentally demoed the wrong room, and in the process dropped debris on my two (previously unknown to me) children, killing them. (And I was like, “I know I should be more upset about my babies, but first let’s address the issue at hand…. YOU DEMOED THE WRONG ROOM.”)

So yeah. I have trust issues. And maybe a small lack of maternal instincts.

When I finally pulled myself out of that tangled mess of REM sleep and psychological disorders I had about 15 minutes until the actual non-baby-killing demo crew was supposed to arrive. I dragged myself out of bed, stumbled down about half of the steps (wearing nothing but a hoodie), stopped, looked to my left, and saw the entire demo crew staring back at me through my curtain-less glass front door. Mouths agape.

I handled this in the only respectable way possible, which was to blink at them fifteen times and then make a mad dash back upstairs. Five minutes later I walked back down and opened the door nonchalantly, as if they all hadn’t just seen me not wearing pants.

So that’s how the day started.

About thirty seconds later they informed me that as they pulled in to the driveway, they saw a truck exiting my second driveway, carrying a dumpster…

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Which is weird because 1.) this dumpster has been on my property for at least four months, and 2.) my family owns the dumpster company and knew that I was waiting to have my bathroom demoed before having it hauled off.

But I walked outside and, sure enough, the dumpster was gone. Fifteen minutes after demo started.

Mind you, if this had happened one day previously, I would have been able to order a new dumpster in time. If it had happened 20 minutes later, I would have been able to stop them from taking the dumpster. Or if I’d managed not to sleep through my alarm and was doing farm chores when I should have been, I may have actually been able to avert this disaster.

As it stood, this happened while we were waiting for another dumpster to arrive:

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We used so many garbage bags I actually had to make an emergency run for more.

The lack of appropriate place to dispose of our debris didn’t stop the progress though.

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And you thought I stood on top of precariously balanced ladders….

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It took three of us nine full hours to clear this bathroom out. Among the best discoveries, at least ten years of birds nests in the wall…

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This is what twenty-years of leaky shower pan does to the frame…

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Among my least favorite things to do…

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Removing this toilet and all of the fabulous things growing in it from its spot on the carpet.

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The best part of the day was 1.) When a new dumpster arrived, and 2.) Having my neighbors tractor available to haul all of the debris we’d piled up out there.

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I really need one of these. Have I mentioned that yet (four or five hundred times)?

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You wouldn’t think one bathroom could create this much debris… but you would be wrong.

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But, at the end of the day, it was legitimately cleared out.

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Demo, of course, raised some structural questions about the re-build. For example, there’s a vent running through the wall I planned to tear out to change the orientation of the hallway toilet. And a crazy soffit that I’m not sure if I want to tear out or not. Nothing insurmountable, of course, but enough to make me roll my eyes until I almost fall out of my chair.

Next up, really gross carpet removal and repairing the subfloor. DIY is so glamorous…

20 Responses

  1. With a door and without carpet, that toilet stall really would not be that bad. I mean that the door should go between the bedroom and bathroom, not on the toilet closet. A door there would feel like peeing in a vertical coffin. You might think that it is crazy to even think that someone would mean to put a door there, but my parents lived in a house with just such a toilet coffin which also had carpeting. Where do these bizarre builders come from?

    1. Really unfortunate timing. They were picking up all their “sitting” dumpsters, and my uncle told them to check with me before picking mine up, but, of course, they didn’t.

  2. WTH happened to the first dumpster and how are they making it up to you?
    PS: try sleeping in pants the night before you expect people over. Save the whole “crew of strangers staring at my panties” thing…

    1. My family gives me the dumpsters for free, so basically I’m just going to be grateful that I haven’t had to pay for the four 30-yard dumpsters I’ve filled up with this place so far, and really grateful they got me a new dumpster that day while the crew was still at the house to help load it! 😉

    1. Every day Kit or one of the comments provide me with a much needed laugh…. THANKS to Kit and mcgrim!

  3. Excellent! I am also demoing a downstairs bathroom with 20 years of water damage due to a leaky $2.49 gasket and a poorly installed shower pan. He attached the pan to the bottom plates by drywall screws THROUGH THE SHOWER PAN. Yes, THROUGH THE SHOWER PAN. So far I’ve seen no attempt to avoid drywall in wet spots, no attempt to apply any sort of vapor-barrier…and a lot of black mold and rotten wood.

    Are we dealing with the same guy? We have the same carpet, anyway. I have found that particular dirt-brown industrial carpet to be a harbinger of doom: mold, cat/dog pee, cigarette smoke from the Eisenhower era, etc.

    I’ll be following along! It’s good to know I’m not alone here at Chateau Jojo, even though, like you, I’m doing all the

  4. Sort of liking living a life made up of nothing but movie out-takes. Funny stuff.

    Don’t worry. It won’t get any better. I’ve been DIYing for 40 years and I still glue my hand to things.

  5. I was expecting to read that you were running down the road/driveway after the dumpster, without pants in boots because that’s all there was time for. But surprise it didn’t go that way.

  6. Removing toilets are the easiest part of any demo. A light “tap” with your framing hammer on each side of the mounting flange and 10 seconds later it’s ready for the dumpster. I love watching people spend forever trying to unscrew those rusted old bolts. I usually wait at least 10 minutes before I say: “where are you planning to reuse that old toilet”?

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