Demo Done Day

Going from complete chaos to clean and calm happened this week. By Friday afternoon, even the sidewalks were washed, tools away, equipment gone and  a sense of recovery set in. For me, choosing a contractor that values our environment and does everything possible to leave a clean, safe place for us to spend our weekend is so important. We lost one valuable asset that hasn't yet been recovered, internet access. But close houses and fine neighbors have temporarily resolved that issue for us.

Water, electricity and heat came and went over the past week, but by Friday, everything was in working order. We are now looking at a blank slate. They have built a retaining wall with the cement debris and have dug some of the footings in preparation for the cement pour that we hope will happen before the rain clouds move in. The forecast shows sunny days for another week, so we are hopeful that footings and the layout of our new place will start to emerge. It is bigger than we thought, and closer to our existing deck, but can't tell yet how it will all lay out.

These photos came in reverse order with the top being most recent. 

Block retaining wall will keep our cellar dry and supported over time.

Friday clean-up left our little half-house calm and dust free. Boarded up tight against the cold north winds and hooking up the black heater vent (near the stairs) kept us warm and comfortable. 

Clean sweep, only a small pile of cement blocks saved as foundation filler.

Thursday's mess and jackhammer noise made the Friday clean-up seem impossible.

December 1- Lots of progress has been made in three days

It has been surprising how fast the demo has progressed. First the trees were removed, then the wood that will be salvaged and put back in, and then in a matter of minutes the back porch was given a shove and down it came. Loads of debris leave the driveway in the small dumpster. They decided the big dumpsters were just too difficult to maneuver in the tight spaces. The crew arrives early to get parking places along our narrow street.

By the third day, the roof and kitchen walls were down. Footings were removed and we are nearly down to dirt everywhere except the kitchen floor. They will salvage some Douglas Fir from the floor.

Demo Day 1:

Salvaging the exterior slats.

Little porch is stripped for salvage wood before it is removed.

Lower slats are removed and saved.

Last look at the Crepe Myrtle tree.

The little porch collapses with a push from the back hoe.

Three layers of roofing material piles up. The original roof was painted redwood shingles. Now these dried shingles are considered a serious fire hazard and have all been removed.

The kitchen floor stands alone with the final roof section sagging without support. I feel a twinge of sadness, but mostly I'm so happy to get going with our project.

Redwood joists are pulled down one at a time. As the kitchen structure starts to loosen up.

Porch footings are not deep enough or wide enough to fit the updated building codes. These giant pieces will be re-used as part of the layered support under the existing house.

I return to the house at night and find the original stairs standing alone in the dark. Three days of work and this is what remains.

The back wall is getting buttoned up. I'll get by without heat for the night. Temperatures are dropping, but no sign of rain. Kitchen floor is still in tack, but not usable due to warping and sagging.

November 28th We begin again.

Back on March 28, 2016

We submitted what we thought were final plans for approval and we were positive construction would begin within the week. For many reasons, our plans were not approved, nearly 30 items were called out and would require explanations, exhibits and what I called my "defense". It took until June 2016 to finalize the "dissertation" and submit the 30 pages of "explanation" to the commission. It was approved in less than 10 minutes with great enthusiasm over our efforts to enhance, preserve and give one of these historic homes another 100 years of life.

With our Hisorical waivers in hand, we set August 1 as our new start date.

However, there were some "small" changes that needed to be done to the structural elements since we added a covered back porch.   Our front porch is our favorite "room" now, so we did not hesitate to add a mirror image of the front porch onto the back. Turned pillars and matching railing will balance the house end to end.

But covered porches are not as easily added as we had anticipated. Roof lines were adjusted, weight bearing beams were added, decorative pillars were modified for strength and months of passing the plans back and forth from the architect, to the engineer, to the contractor, homeowner, and round and round we went for months. 

We have now been living in our "half house" for 8 months and find it cozy. We have everything we need, except a kitchen sink, and have become regulars at the local sandwich and coffee shops.  As the seasons have passed, I can say that is is far easier to stay warm in a cold house, than comfortable in a hot house.

With much frustration and final reviews, the plans were approved sometime in November. Our attentions that, at one time, were totally focused on "the remodel". Are now divided between preparing another house to sell, welcoming a new grand baby into the family and planning our annual family Christmas gathering.

When we got word that construction was beginning, we basically didn't believe it.  The guys showed up to do demo, and we hadn't even moved our belongings out of the demo area.  Complete denial.

Here are a sequence of photos dating back to March and showing the progressive destruction of what was once our home.

Photos are probably the best way to capture the evolution of space and time.


March 2016

Small bathroom demo begins. Due to safety concerns, the original tub didn't make the cut. We opted for the scald and drowning protection provided by current tub standards.

Kitchen demo happens so fast, we don't even take a pre photo.

Kitchen cabinets practically come away from the walls willingly.

Original high, double-hung kitchen window was closed using plywood many years ago. Around the same time the 10-foot kitchen ceilings were dropped to 8 feet.

Original window frame and original 10-foot ceiling joists can be seen along with the outline of an old door leading to the bathroom. This bathroom door must have been closed long ago. It continues to be a mystery why anyone would lower 10-foot ceilings.

The original back porch reveals the original window frames as the layers of drywall and plywood are removed. The ceiling for this part of the structure is only 7 feet high to the roof, so it will be removed. We will save the windows and frames to be used in the final structure. The red wood beams will be removed and reused along with all of the exterior siding.

Framing for original porch screens are uncovered. The sloping ceiling and low roof line will be removed to allow for a standard 10 foot ceiling to match the two other bedrooms.

Glass and frames from the old windows will be reused in the kitchen cabinets. Lead paint on porch ceiling shines through. The original greens and yellows are still vibrant. 

From March through November, the back of the house stayed essentially unchanged as we waited for permits to build. At this time, the exterior of the house was completely intact along with the utilities. We had our washer and dryer and stove hooked up and usable.

Debris from the demo was sorted and the sinks, tub, hardware were given to Habitat for Humanity or others in need. Light fixtures and fans had all been added much later and were not original to the house. We saved all of the cabinet pulls and used them on the wine cabinets. The brass and porcelain pulls were likely original. Window and door hardware was all saved and will be replaced.

Laundry room before demo.

Laundry room following demo. A privacy wall was constructed seen on the right, to keep dust out of the main house. 

While we wait for the permits to be issued, we have a lot of time to find doors and order floors.

I went to a salvage yard in Berkeley, California and searched through over 3,000 doors that had been salvaged from San Francisco Victorian houses. I needed to find 6 Eastlake doors to, not only match our Eastlake pattern, but we needed specific sizes to fit the plans.  Additionally, in three areas, we needed exact twin doors to make our doorways complete.

Eastlake doors were designed with a pretty consistent 5-panel design, but the sizes of the panels varied greatly and the design around the panels had wide variations.

After spending an entire day looking for doors, we now have a total of 10 Eastlake doors with 3 sets of "twins" to complete our historical remodel/addition.

Still in the salvage yard, here are some of the doors we will use.

Identical sets are really hard to find. We gleaned every solid Eastlake door we could find at Urban Ore. Note the excellent condition of these twins.

Prior to understanding the tagging system, we pulled each door out and compared it to our photos. These doors weigh over 100 pounds a piece, hence the advice to bring gloves, solid shoes and a "door buddy" before tackling this warehouse of 3,500 doors.

These were all categorized as tall doors. Over the years, they get cut to allow for carpet or tile so none of them are the same height.

When they say "tall" they mean tall!

These two twins were rescued from a fire. They have lots of smoke damage, but are not burned. They should clean up beautifully.

Here is a twin set with 4 panels rather than 5. These extra tall doors will be connected to make a large pocket door.

Miles of doors, most are from old homes, a few are new.

We found this gem, with it's Apple sticker. Unlike many Victorian doors, this one was wide enough to meet the current requirements for exterior door access. Despite it's many years of wear as an exterior door, it is a beauty that will do well as our rear entrance. The knob and locks will be moved up and the wood will be reinforced and patched. The old locking mechanisms really require a lot of space and the wood can break down after years of use. We will use colored glass on this exterior door to match the interior door shown below.

Salvaged from a beautiful Victorian home in Stockton, this door was originally part of a double front entrance set. It is only 27 inches wide, not wide enough for any of our doorways.

The door came from this 1890's home. The grand staircase lead to the front double door. Later, the front entrance was moved and only one of the original doors was used. 

Our door was stored in an out building and was thick with dust. Restoring it involved pulling it apart at all of the seams, cleaning and re-glueing each seam while squaring the frame to eliminate the warping that happened over the years. 

Here is the "twin" door still being used as the front entrance to this grand Victorian home. Note the random color pattern.

Our little "orphan" started out looking rather sad. Many old homes have doors stored in attics, garages or barns. It is worth while asking around to see if anyone in your neighborhood has any doors. We found two in our own garage and my friend found this one in hers. When I first saw it, I thought it looked hopeless.

Unwilling to let this gem get put aside, we decided to use it as a cabinet door with back lighting to make it the focal point for our dining room. 

It needed some pieces of glass and, upon closer inspection, we found that most of the original glue chip panes had been broken and replaced by other types of stained glass. Most of the colors no longer matched, so there were basically 8 different colors and 4 different textures in the 16 panes. We decided to find some glue chip panes and see if we could make a pattern using the original glue chip and the new panes and remove all of the other panes.

Glue chip comes in many thicknesses, so once we ordered some panes on line, we had to first select similar thickness and similar colors. Because each color only had odd numbers of matching panes and we have a 16 panel design that does not lend itself to using odd numbered colors, I set up a "viewing box" using a large clear pane of glass and putting a bright light behind it to get an idea of how the door would look using different designs.

Here is the resulting door with an asymmetrical color pattern.

Despite the appearance of mis matched colors, when light is evenly distributed behind the door, the true colors glisten with the glue chip pattern giving it a sparkle. Here is the finished product preparing for winter storage. She is hardly recognizable.

Here is the set up I used to create a pattern that my geometrically inclined husband could tolerate, while using every single pane. We couldn't use many panes we had because they were too thick.  We had to integrate singles into the pattern while keeping the mis matches away from each other.  Luckily, the glue chip deflects light and even with perfect matches, the colors changes based on the direction of light. In the end, it looks really beautiful.

The artist that gave this old door it's new life, took several months cleaning and re-gluing it.

With so many joins and wood dowlings, once the weather got wet, he needed to move all of our doors out of his mountain workshop and down to a drier elevation. The joints were already beginning to swell.

Along with completely restoring the glue chip door, he also had to help our three sets of twin doors. The sets had perfect panel matches, but were not the same height or width. One of the sets is going to become one huge pocket door, so he had to insert dowelings to hold the two doors together into one. This 8 foot tall, seven feet wide door weighs more than 400 pounds. The two doors will have to be hung separately and then put together and glued once they are in the frame. I can't wait to see how that one turns out.

Thanksgiving day

We have arrived at one of our many "deadline dates" and instead of "arriving" we have taken several detours that are leaving us pretty close to where we were a month ago.

Detour # 1- I decided to remove the white book cases in the office. They are too damaged and shallow to be much use.

Detour # 2- Once the book cases were no longer holding up the walls, the plaster  decided to fall down.

Detour # 3- New drywall, plaster and priming takes an extra day.

Detour # 4- After removing the bookcases and old plaster on three of the four walls, a fourth area (below) decided to crack and buckle and we went back to demolition mode again.

Good news, our painter is also a drywaller and is willing to work through the Thanksgiving holiday to get us back on track.

Bad news, we don't have any drywall available and all of the stores are closed today, dah!  I imagine we may be the only people looking for drywall on Thanksgiving.

Word to the wise. Remove all exterior plaster walls during demolition. They will need to be removed eventually and doing it after you have put away your demo equipment is a real pain, especially on Thanksgiving morning.

Lath and plaster wall begins to buckle after the crew tried to save it with a layer of new plaster.  It had to be totally removed.

We think we can see the end of this very long tunnel, but G and J arrive tomorrow night and finding a clean place to put them is going to be a challenge. The plummer, cabinet guy and drywaller will all be furiously trying to put the house in order tomorrow and the next day, but I am not planning on having much of a guest room by tomorrow night.

Final look at the office with carpet sample and freshly painted walls.

Searching for doors...

The "Eastlake" door, designed by a British architect, has a distinctive design with specific detail around the recessed panels. The code words "Eastlake 5-P 33x80" allowed us to rummage through over 3,500 doors in 5 hours and find 6 doors that fit the description.

Here is what we currently have in our house and below are the "treasures" we found in Berkeley.

Urban Ore and Omega Salvage boasted thousands of reclaimed doors from the beautiful San Francisco Victorians. They were not exaggerating!!  We spent an entire day going through salvaged doors. Stacked in long aisles like this. Word to the wise...This is not a trip for the faint of heart or the non-robust shopper. It took us about 5 hours to locate 6 doors among the more than 3,500 possible doors.

One in 100 doors that come into the salvage world is an Eastlake, and we needed specific sizes to fit our design. A bit of a "needle in a haystack experience". Most old doors run narrow, around 27-29 inches. We needed  32 inch interior doors and one exterior door that was at least 34 inches.  We also needed 2 identical pocket doors to fit a 9 feet tall opening.




The varying heights give you an idea of the many shortening events these doors have sustained over the years. Carpet installations were probably the main reason for chopping the doors. Urban Ore had broad categories of doors like short, tall, extra tall, and solid core.  Not a lot to go on, especially when you don't know the Dewey Decimal system for doors.

Between these two locations, and a generous friend who had an Eastlake exterior door in her garage, we managed to fill every doorway with authentic, solid core, Eastlake doors. I can't wait to see them hung.


The identical 9 foot pocket doors. These weight about 150 pounds a piece. They will need to be joined together to make one massive sliding pocket door.  I am sure my contractor will groan when he sees them. They are monsters. When doing a restoration, you just have to love the authenticity even when the price is a aching back.

 This beautiful old door will be our back entrance. Original, wavy, leaded glass makes it look spectacular and the "Apple" sticker tells me it hasn't been living in a warehouse for long.

These two pristine doors were a wonderful find.

The final two doors we found had survived a fire and will need some TLC to get them back in shape.

I ended up with one extra exterior door (not pictured) that is only 29 inches wide, too small for my entrances. Using Houzz and Pintrist, I found wonderful options for using this door for the pantry or cabinet in the dining room. It will need some glue and glass, but once it is finished it will add another element of "new/old" for our house.